


Machine of a Heart

by traumschwinge



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Blood and Violence, Body Image, Body Modification, Bonding, Broken Bones, Concussions, Dark Charles, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Erik has Issues, Government Experimentation, Grooming, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Physical Abuse, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Imbalance, Pre-Apocalypse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Strangulation, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-12-13 16:49:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11764194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/pseuds/traumschwinge
Summary: Thirteen years ago, when he was just recovering from an incident during one of his deployments, Logan met Dr Charles Xavier. Dr Xavier, who'd just decided that Logan, while still unconscious, was perfect to try some physical improvements as a proof of concept for the large military project he was, back then, co-heading. Now, Logan's mostly a spy, tangled up in whatever mess Charles and his superiors think necessary to involve him with. It doesn't matter that Logan has feelings, about Charles' project, about Charles himself, about just altering other people's bodies without their consent. What'll matter soon, however, is stopping some harebrained weapons manufacturer from causing the consumption of the entire biomass on planet Earth.Heavily inspired by Deus Ex (Logan), Halo (Erik) and Horizon: Zero Dawn (The world)





	1. Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please, please heed the tags.  
> There's no consensual pairing or sex here.  
> Logan and Erik WILL talk about the experiments and physical modifications done to them, probably in detail.

Drenched in his own sweat, Logan jolted awake. Rapid breaths. Shaking all over. A searing pain in all his limbs. 

It took him a while to calm down. Ease his breath. Calm. Relax. It had just been a dream. A memory. Nothing in the present could hurt him. He was in his bed. He wasn’t running down a backalley. It was the middle of the night. It wasn’t just around sunset. If he fell asleep, he would get up for work the next morning. If he fell asleep, he wouldn’t wake up in a hospital bed, two legs and an arm missing.

One finger after another, conscious of every movement, Logan unclenched his hand grabbing the sheets. Everything was alright. It had only been a nightmare. 

Still, every shadow in his tiny one room apartment reminded him of that alley. The smoke. It was so quiet. He could still hear the ringing from after the explosion. It had been years ago. It felt like yesterday.

In the gloom provided by the streetlights, Logan looked down at his hands. Both of them. One still the arm he had been born with so long ago. The other a mechanical replacement. State of the art, the nurse at the military hospital had told him. Better than ever before, the doctor’d said. It’d only take a while to relearn certain things, they’d told him. Walking. Jumping. Jumping as high as he meant to instead of against the ceiling. Not breaking every glass he touched, bending all the handles when he tried to open doors. Better than ever, Logan would scoff. He still did but now nobody listened anymore. Or maybe they never had. 

At the very least, he thought as he took a cheap cigar from the box on his nightstand, the augmentations replacing his limbs came with actual perks. Like the in-built lighter he used to light his cigar. He tugged at his t-shirt. The fabric was clinging to his skin and cooling rapidly. He should change.

He stood up, cigar in mouth. Instead of heading directly for his shower, however, he instead walked over to the window. From the lights he could see, it was still so early the sky wouldn’t change colors for hours. About half the stores on the street his window overlooked were still lit, the half that offered 24/7 service to its customers. All the others, closing around midnight or a little later, picking back up at four or five the next morning, were dark.

Logan took a long drag from his cigar. He closed his eyes.

For a while, he did nothing but stand at the window and smoke.

His human, biological, natural, hand was the only part of him that still shook, ever so slightly.

He only moved when he’d almost finished his cigar. From his nightstand, he fetched his phone, one of the old fashioned models he liked. He could do most of its functions with his augs, but it didn’t stop him from carrying it around. It made him feel a little less like a robot. A little more human. Cigar between his teeth, he typed a text message.

Then, he finished his cigar before he went to get the cold sweat showered off.

When he came back to his phone, hair still dripping where he hadn’t gotten to it with the towel yet, he had an answer. He should have known. “You’ll be in your office when I get there, huh?” Logan asked his phone. His phone, all voice commands turned off deep in the code of its OS, showed no sign of reaction. “Should’ve known… fucking workaholic.”

⥁⥁⥁

Despite taking his time, it was still barely four when Logan reached the base. The lone guard at the gate merely blinked at Logan very slowly while he let the retina scanner verify Logan’s identity. Then, unknowing that the scanner had more likely accessed the chip Logan knew they’d put in his eyes, he went back to dozing at his job.

Even at four, the base was lit inside with the same sterile, omnipresent, artificial light. Logan hadn’t seen the corridor lights off even once. Not in the thirteen years since he’d first entered this base. It took another scan for him to access the elevator to the administrative floors. Another to get off. Once more for the corridor toward the office he was headed. And one last time at the door of the office. Sometimes, Logan wondered, why they even bothered with all that, considering most of the people inside the base were at least augmented enough to be tracked at any time. Then again, it was probably designed to be an ordeal.

The office door took its sweet time to verify his identity yet again. Logan crossed his arms and tapped his fingers against the cold compound metal of his upper arm. He knew Charles needed to let him in manually. And he also knew that he was being made to wait for a moment.

“You’re up early,” Charles greeted him with a sunny smile. Logan could swear if there was a single augment in Charles’ body it was one that just made him skip all sleep. He looked like he’d not missed a night of eight hour sleep in a decade, all chipper and fresh to start a new day at dawn. Too bad dawn was hours off and Logan knew Charles’ sleeping habits.

“And you’re up fucking late, Chuck,” he grumbled as he stepped inside.

Charles put the pad down he’d been studying. “Trouble sleeping?” He motioned for Logan to take a seat in front of his desk.

“As if you don’t know.” Logan tapped the side of his head. “Or do you expect me to believe you turned this off? Stopped collecting any and all data that might be useful?”

Charles shrugged. “No. Of course not. I just thought I’d be nice.”

“Cut the nice, Chuck. Not up for it.” Logan just barely stopped himself from growling.

For a moment, Charles just looked at him, face unreadable. “Then, what do you want? As you so well observed, I am indeed still awake. Which should tell you that I’m busy.”

“Not busy enough to tell me to fuck off.” Logan smirked. He extended his artificial arm, hand palm up, ready for Charles to take.

Charles hesitated for just a heartbeat. Slowly, he placed his hand in Logan’s. The other one remained on his keyboard. “So that’s what you’re here for?” There was an amused glint in Charles’ eyes.

“For a checkup I could just come in at normal office hours,” Logan replied.

Charles hummed softly, as his fingers brushed up over Logan’s inner wrist and up his arm. With his index finger, he trailed the edge of one of the metal covers back down to the wrist again. “Still, while you here, let me at least check up on your arm. You’re always so very careless with it.” His free hand grasped Logan’s metal fingers to hold him in place while he opened the arm’s covers with his other.

Logan’s reflex was to struggle. Like always when Charles did this without asking, his metal arm did not respond to his will. On his leg, Logan clenched his remaining natural hand into a fist, only too aware that under the fabric of his jeans there were two other metal limbs no longer under his control alone. Logan didn’t dare to try moving them.

Charles took his time checking the inner workings of Logan’s arm augmentation. First, he turned it this way and that, peering through gaps at parts closer to the center, testing the moving parts of the hand to see if they functioned as intended. 

Logan merely watched. He could still feel Charles’ touch, but it was distant, muted, like his brain had resigned itself to the fact that the mechanical limb was temporarily no real part of his body.

Next, Charles went through the non-standard additions to the arm. Routinely, he made the hand slide back and up towards the elbow like no natural hand ever could, revealing the muzzle of a gun embedded within. With a pleased nod, Charles slid the hand back, checking up on the blades installed next, then the batons, one by the wrist one extending from the elbow, and at last the second gun, accessed by sliding the hand in the other direction.

For a while after he’d reassembled the arm, Charles stared at his computer, studying the readouts it displayed in silence.

“Are you done yet?” Logan asked when he couldn’t take it anymore. The detached feeling of his metal arm had become an annoying tingle.

“Soon,” Charles assured him. He pressed a button. “Try rolling your shoulder, please.”

Logan  stood up and did as he was told, wincing only ever so slightly when for a second he could feel a resistance to the movement he intended.

“Ah,” was all Charles had to say to that. “We should refit that before your next mission. Can you stay in today after we’re done?” He looked at the screen again. “Yes, you can. Good, I’ll inform the mechanics you’ll drop by. What else…” For another moment, Charles was silent until he’d found what he’d been looking for. “We need to adjust your eyes again soon. You’re getting old.”

“That’s what people tend to do,” Logan reminded Charles.

Charles hummed in response. “Still, I can’t remotely adjust your eyes forever without breaking them.”

“Glasses are out of the question?” Logan joked.

From the look on Charles’ face, he could tell the joke had landed flat on its nose. “What do you think?”

“New visual augs?” Logan sighed.

Charles nodded.

When Charles didn’t say anything for a while, Logan shifted in his seat. “Was that all now?” he asked. 

Charles leveled a very measuring look on him. “Yes,” he said slowly, pushing his chair back and getting up. “Yes, that’s all for making sure you won’t get killed the next time you need to use your augmentations.” Still glaring at Logan, he undid his tie, absentmindedly wrapping one end around his hand once it was off. He stepped around the desk. There was only little space between the desk and Logan, so Charles didn’t even bother. Instead, he stood behind Logan, putting a hand on each of Logan’s shoulder.

With his left hand, Charles trailed along Logan’s collarbone from Logan’s right shoulder to the left. Logan only had a brief moment to wonder about the caressing touch. Then, Charles pulled the tie taunt, pressing it against Logan’s neck, allowing him only shallow breaths.

“Listen here, Logan,” Charles snarled directly into Logan’s ear. “You might think that just because I allow this between us to happen, just because I allow you to act as independently as permissible when you work, all that doesn’t mean that you’re more than an asset of this base. The military, this base, made you. We paid for you. We own you. And thus, I  _ own  _ you. When I say you need a checkup, you’ll say ‘yes sir’ and do as you’re told. When I tell you you will get a new augmentation to do your job, you’ll say ‘thank you, sir’. You will not argue with me, ever again. Especially not when I’m already tired anyway. Are we understood?”

Logan tried to loosen the tie around his neck with one hand. The other, the metal one, wouldn’t obey him. He hadn’t expected it to. As thanks for his effort, Charles pulled a little harder yet, cutting the last bit of air off.

“I said, are we understood?” Charles repeated.

Logan nodded. He knew when he had no choices.

The tie loosened, but Charles didn’t let go of it entirely just yet. “I hate when you make me remind you how things are.”

Logan wanted to respond, but his voice was nothing but an intelligible wheeze. He coughed, hard and long. When he finally felt like he was breathing again, he said, “It’s not easy being your favorite, sir.” Right now, it felt mostly horrible. Terrifying even. He should just have asked a lower ranking officer for a bunch of drugs. But then again, taking them… or worse, having Charles learn of that, would only make matters worse. So, back to not ticking Charles off too much it was. He’d been surviving it for thirteen years now. He could endure it some more.

“My favorite?” Charles repeated, finally dropping the tie with one hand in favor of carding his fingers through Logan’s hair. “Right now, that’s hardly the case. But you could try getting back into my really good graces. If nothing else, it’d make for a surprising change of pace.”

“Do you want me on my hands and knees, begging?” Logan bit his lip. It was hard letting go of habits, especially the one to antagonize every single person he’d ever talked to when feeling uncomfortable.

Charles hummed, pulling Logan by his hair to make him look up at him. “As tempting as that is, no. Not today. But you’re lucky. I’m in the mood for a rough fuck. And you are the best I know at that.” He let go of Logan.

“Here?” Logan asked, as Charles started to clear his desk to make just enough space for them. He also pressed some buttons, allowing Logan to move again.

“My room is… not viable right now,” Charles said, without turning around to look at Logan.

“Visitor?” Logan guessed.

This time, Charles turned. His hands were already on his pants, ready to open them. “Yes. And while I can leave, telling him I have work to do, I do not think it would go down too well if I took you there for a fuck.”

Logan bit his tongue, in the hope that’d be harder to pick up than biting his lip. “So… your current favorite then?”

Charles shrugged. “The one requiring more than a booty call once a month. Are you going to move?” He was pushing his pants down, revealing that he hadn’t even bothered with underwear.

Logan swallowed. “Yeah, sure, how do you want me?”

Charles leaned over the desk, pulling a drawer open. A moment later, he tossed Logan lube. “I want you to bend me over this table and fuck me rough from behind.”

Again, Logan swallowed. That was definitely a thing he could do. He just hadn’t expected Charles to be this willing to let him at least pretend he was in charge during the sex. Somehow, with Charles’ mood in mind, this felt like a test.

Quickly, Logan undid his jeans and pushed them down just far enough to get his dick out. A quick probe with a lubed up finger revealed Charles to be already plenty stretched. Just because he was sure that rough didn’t mean bareback and dry, Logan still took at least a minute to lube Charles up as well as he could, mindful to also test if he needed some more stretching as well.

“Did you have a nice evening?” Logan rumbled. While he had three fingers knuckle deep in Charles’ ass seemed a good time to ask questions.

Charles hummed in affirmation, moving his hips so he could fuck himself a little on Logan’s finger. “And a nice afternoon. The poor boy is nervous and needs my attention.”

“You’re allowing a younger man to fuck you?” That didn’t sound like Charles to Logan. Not that Logan wasn’t aware that Charles had had younger lovers before. It was more that Charles had previously only talked about them bottoming for him.

“I allowed him to lie still while I rode him,” Charles laughed, breathless. “I’m ready enough, Logan.”

“You’re the boss,” Logan murmured, pulling his fingers out of Charles and wiping them off on his jeans. Without any proper foreplay, his dick still needed a little more effort to get fully hard. But with a couple of quick, short strokes, that was only a matter of moments. Logan wasn’t sure if Charles would’ve permitted a much longer wait.

Lining his prick up with his natural hand, Logan slipped the thumb of his mechanical hand inside Charles again, using it to hold him open so he could push the head of his prick in more easily. “Rough, you said?” Logan asked, just to make sure.

“As rough as you can,” Charles confirmed. Logan could see him brace himself with his hands gripping the edge of the desk so tight his knuckles were turning white.

Logan swallowed. Once, there had been gentle sex between them, at least sometimes. But for the last couple of months, if not for more than a year by now, Charles had been insistent on rough. “Just what’s stressing you so bad?” Logan asked as he forced his prick balls deep up Charles’ ass with a single snap of his hips. The resistance to it from Charles was a lot less than he’d expected. With his hands on either side of Charles’ hips for leverage, Logan started fucking Charles with deep, forceful thrusts.

It took a while until Charles found words between his moans again. “I told you before,” he wheezed. “We’re wrapping up the project.”

Logan paused in his movement, just long enough that Charles thought it necessary to step on his foot with force. Logan cursed the lack of foresight that had him choose sneakers over steel caps. “That’s now?” he asked, picking back up pace. “Already?”   
“Sixteen years in the making is,  _ ahn _ , hardly— _ fuck, Logan, deeper _ —already,” Charles panted. He was pushing back against Logan now. “Preparations included, it’s almost eighteen, even.”

Logan tightened his grip for a moment before he remembered he probably shouldn’t leave marks on Charles’. At least not if he wanted to be considerate of Charles’ new boytoy. Instead, he changed his angle just enough he could thrust up instead of just straight in. “Can’t believe you’re giving those kids the go,” he grunted. “One, two years back they were so… green. Just overall green.”

“I could still order a repaint of their armour,” Charles snorted.

With Logan’s next thrust, he finally got the response he’d hoped for with his new angle. Charles’ breath caught, only to change into broken moans. On this cue, Logan changed pace, from deep, long thrusts to much shorter stabs, meant to mostly rub against Charles’ prostate.

“Hand…” Charles had to swallow before he got the next words out. “On my… ah… dick.. right… ngh… now!”

Logan didn’t hesitate a second. As well as he could without breaking pace, he let go of Charles’ hip with his metal hand, in favor of wrapping it around Charles’ dick instead. Logan knew fully well Charles actually somewhat prefered it, and, considering he could turn that wrist any way he wanted without hurting himself, Logan didn’t mind as much as he felt he should.

Jerking Charles off while still doing his best to keep up back and force wasn’t easy. It were moments like that that Logan was somewhat thankful his new mechanical legs came with their own stabilisation and not just his sense of balance. He couldn’t rely on his hands on Charles’ hips for leverage anymore, making it harder to buck into Charles. Having to focus on keeping his balance as well would be too much.

Holding Charles’ dick, feeling its weight and girth, feeling it pulsate in his grip, all that made Logan feel warm all over. For the first time, he closed his eyes, leaned closer to Charles. His chest was almost flat against Charles’ back, sticky and hot despite the fabric still between them. He groaned into Charles’ ear, licking it and, in a moment of forgetfulness, even putting a tiny kiss to Charles’ sweaty temple. It was moments like that when he could pretend they were closer than just boss and lackey, fucking for the mutual relief of it.

Charles didn’t give any warning when he eventually came. Only years of experience let Logan understand the minute changes and being ready to catch the few lazy squirts with his hand, preventing most of it from splashing against the desk. Logan let go as soon as Charles was done, pulling out of him as well. The way Charles’ had clamped down on him as he came had almost been enough to force an orgasm out of Logan as well. It was just a vague feeling, but somehow, Logan didn’t want to come inside Charles. His gut feeling warned him against it. Instead, he came into his hand, jerking himself off the last bit of the way with his natural hand.

By the time he finished, Charles had fished out a box of tissues from his desk drawer and turned around. Without a word, he handed Logan a tissue to clean up. While Logan wiped his hands, throwing the used tissues in Charles’ desk bin, Charles swiftly got his clothes back in order, running a hand through his hair to tame it. Logan hadn’t noticed it before but it looked like it was thinning. Logan zipped his jeans back up.

“You should probably shower before you go see the mechanics,” Charles noted.

Logan sniffed at his hand, then his shirt. “Probably,” he agreed. “You’re going back to your… room?”

Charles stretched. “No.” He poked his pad back to life and peered at the clock. “I should get back to do some actual work now, I think.”

“Alright.” Logan nodded. He turned to go.

“Logan?” Charles said, softly.

Logan turned.

“...I’ll likely have need for you before the end of the week for a final test run so we can declare the project a success.” For a second, he looked worried. “Try not to get caught up in any mess until then.”

Logan nodded briefly. “Job’s always first.” 

Charles opened his mouth to say more, but then thought better of it, pressing his lips together. Not ready to find out if he was still allowed to ask questions, Logan merely shrugged. At the door, he said, “I’ll be there when you call. You know I will.”

Outside Charles’ office, on his way down to the showers by the base’s gyms, Logan couldn’t shake the feeling he’d already been caught in a horrible mess years ago and it’d only gotten worse since. The worst part, however, was that the look he’d briefly seen on Charles’ face had been closer to genuine worry than he was comfortable with.

The maintenance lab of R&D, where Logan arrived after a quick wash and changing into a fresh tracksuit from his locker, was bright and bustling. From what he knew of their schedules, the mechanics present should be just wrapping up an uneventful night shift manned by a skeleton crew for emergencies. And yet, there were people fussing over mechanical parts, banged up armor and weapons, around almost every available workbench.

In the crowd, Logan spotted the mechanic usually taking care of maintenance for him and waved. The mechanic looked at him, frowned, looked down at his pad, poked around it just to frown some more and then, still frowning like his whole day had just been ruined, waved Logan over. Without any word of greeting, the mechanic just beckoned Logan to follow him into a small room off to the side. It had nothing but a plain couch in the middle with robot arms like a mechanical spider hanging from the ceiling above it. Logan laid down on it, closing his eyes.

He’d gotten his augs refitted in this room so often, it was nothing but an exercise in not dying of boredom by now. While the robot worked at dismantling the arm as far as it needed to get to the damaged or bent parts, he had to lie as still as possible. Not that the robot would hurt him when he didn’t but it still wasn’t any comfortable when it hit the wrong part. Mostly, however, it’d only prolong the procedure.

“Your legs’re still good?” the mechanic asked as the robot put the last bits of Logan’s arm back in place. A wave of warmth went from Logan’s shoulder to the fingertips, something he’d come to understand as a tell for the rebooting of the connection between his nerves and his augmentation.

“As far as I know, yes,” Logan replied.

“Good,” the mechanic said, in a tone that implied that he’d really appreciate it if Logan got out of the lab asap then.

Logan retreated, doing his best not to let his eyes linger on the workbenches. There was an awful lot of green paint on the parts on them. It wasn’t something Logan wanted to think about at that moment.

If he was entirely honest with himself, there wasn’t anything he really wanted to think about at the moment. So instead of leaving until he was summoned again, he returned to the gym area, this time to actually work out instead of just taking a shower. Routine and exercise, he told himself, would always be a good remedy for the vague feeling of something big happening soon.

Aside from a guy on a treadmill at the far end of the room, the gym was empty when Logan came in. As he didn’t recognize him, Logan ignored him first and went about his own training routine. Eventually, finally, he felt like he could relax, for the first time since he’d woken up. The physical strain of his training left little room for worries, taking them away as exhaustion started to creep in. He pushed himself further, following the instructions the augmentation monitoring his health displayed on whatever training tool he was using at the time. Eventually, it announced that it was time for a break.

The guy on the treadmill was still running.

Logan watched him for a while. He’d thought, based on the age he was guessing, that the guy was one of the fresh recruits on the base, sent away to not be in the way of his supervisor. However, now that he was taking a closer look, a couple of details didn’t add up anymore. The stamina was on thing, somewhat. But not the only tell. The way the guy moved, the muscles he clearly had… nothing about it was like a typical recruit. But, to Logan, the most telling part was the tiny port at the back of his neck, an augmentation that Logan’d only seen under one very specific circumstance.

Logan clenched his fist.

It wasn’t his fault, he told himself. It wasn’t this boy’s fault either. Breathe. It was just a shitty situation as a whole that nobody impacted had asked for. Nothing he could do would change a thing. He really should just relax, wait for his assigned break to end and get back to his workout. He couldn’t just talk to the boy based on the fact that he was a subject of Charles’ project alone.

It shouldn’t matter that the boy looked miserable to Logan.

While Logan was still debating whether to say something or not, whether he should just leave or continue with his training after the break, the boy stopped running. For a moment, he sized Logan up, a flash of uncertainty drifting over his face. Then, his expression steeled. He straightened, one brief glance at the door and another around the room, before walking over, coming to a halt about two steps away from where Logan was sitting. 

For a long moment, they were just looking at each other. Logan noticed the cut at the boy’s brow then and the large bruise at his chest his tank top couldn’t fully cover up. He’s seen the kids from the project in worse shape, sure, but it’d had been a long while since. Somehow, it was unsettling. They were supposed to be untouchable, both by man and machine.

The boy pressed his lips together. His chest moved with each deep breath. Finally, he spoke up, “Can I ask you something?”

Logan shrugged. The boy couldn’t be much older than twenty. “Ask.”

“Have you ever made a mistake? A real bad one?” Again, he pressed his lips together. “So bad you wonder why you’re still alive?”

The question gave Logan a moment’s pause. Instinct told him to laugh, because laughing was easy. He couldn’t laugh at the boy for asking, though. It’d be too cruel. Instead, Logan raised his arm, letting the black metal glint in the neon light. “Whaddaya think?” He knocked on his knee, the metal ringing softly.

The boy was trying to hide it, but it was clear Logan’s response had caught him on the wrong foot. He opened and closed his mouth more than once, trying to find the right words. “What do I do now?”

Logan blinked. That wasn’t the question he’d expected. It didn’t feel like a question he should answer, either. “What were you told to do?”

“I-” The boy frowned. “I shouldn’t worry. It can happen once. Only once. That I…” He closed his eyes, his body taut almost to a breaking point. “I did well after? That I did good, which saved me. That that’s more important? Than me screwing up. When I should’ve never gotten into that situation in the first place?”

Dear lord and heavens above, Logan thought. Charles was going to kill him for this. Not metaphorically speaking. “Did you ask about these doubts?”

“Cha- The director told me to just… run it off? Forget what I’m worrying about and accept that in the end, I did come out alive, and therefore, ahead.” This answer was clearly not one the boy was ready to accept.

“Did it help?” Logan asked. “The running?”

“A little.”

Logan sighed. “Listen. I know they keep telling you you need to be perfect. And not living up to your own standards? That’s worse than any disappointment anyone could express toward you. But… the director might be right here. You’re alive. That counts. You can mend. Your armor can be mended. Dead soldiers can’t do shit.”

“Live ones can still feel like screw ups, though,” the boy replied. He looked a little more relaxed now.

“Well, then don’t screw up next time,” Logan shot back. “What are you? Afraid of making the mistake again? Then train harder.”

For a second, Logan almost believed the boy had snorted. “You sound like the training officer.”

Logan rubbed his hand over his face. “Ok, so. If you want hands on advice. I can’t help you deal with how your feel. That’s your shit and you need to get it together alone. Don’t think they’ll put you back in that armor ever again once you’re marked down as unstable. So. Gotta work through it and learn to deal with it. Run. Scream. Idunno. I started smoking, but I don’t think that’s the right call here.” Logan sighed. “Have you gone over what happened yet?”

“I… don’t really remember.” The boy shook his head a little. “I think I slipped. Stepped on some molten ground and then slipped? That’s when I got hit the first time.”

“Ok.” Logan took a deep breath. He had crossed lines before in this conversation. However, it’d didn’t make it easier to cross this new one. He wasn’t this boy’s training officer. And he sure as hell wasn’t Charles. And yet… he couldn’t just send the boy off as he was. “It was in training, right? Despite the live rounds? That means  _ somebody _ on this godforsaken base has filmed it. Find out who. Get that recording. And then watch it until you understand what you’ve done wrong. But…!” Logan held up a finger. He wanted to be perfectly clear. “You get twelve hours. After that, you give the recording back. No obsessing over it.”

The boy nodded, looking somewhat relieved. Clear instructions. Something to do. His gaze wandered over to the door, then back to Logan. “Do you know the director?” he asked, very, very quietly.

Logan shrugged. “Depends on why you’re asking.”

“I think he’s… really upset with me.” The boy stiffened again. “And he said it’s nothing, but… I don’t want him to be upset.”

Logan blinked at the boy. Those words and Charles’ mood when his mask’d slipped for a second… it matched all too well. “In my experience, whether or not  _ Charles _ is really displeased with you, he’ll tell you” a version of “what he wants you to do.” Logan paused. “If he tells you not to worry too much about it, he’s probably just concerned you’re driving yourself against a mental wall over it.” Or, more likely, knows fully well that you need to get to that conclusion by yourself, not because you’ve been ordered to, Logan added in the privacy of his mind.

The boy breathed out, long and deep. “Ok.”

Logan seized him up. Not your place, he reminded himself. “Try to relax.” He sighed. “I… once, I forgot about a cooldown and got caught. Just barely managed to grab what I was there for and get the hell out. Not forgotten about the cooldown since.”

“What cooldown?” The boy put his head slightly to the side.

Logan smirked at him. “Watch.” He got up. One step to activate cloaking, another to have it fully envelop his body. He walked around the boy, who was just standing there, waiting for him to reappear. One hand on the boy’s shoulder, he deactivated cloaking again. The boy hadn’t even twitched upon the touch. “Can’t go right back into cloaking for like half a minute. Which I had been told. But I forgot for a second and paid the price. Still have scars.” He stepped around the boy. “Everyone screws up sometimes.”

The boy looked glum again. “I don’t wanna disappoint Charles,” he mumbled.

Logan took a deep breath. “Me neither. But… do your best and stay alive. That’s all you can do, really.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. This felt too close to getting to relationship advice now. So, instead, he said what he should have from the start, “Hey, I gotta go now. Keep your head up, kiddo.”


	2. Spartan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I ask you to heed the tags. 
> 
> And no, grooming does not mean the brush and hair kind here.
> 
> Again, this chapter has NON-CONSENSUAL SEX. It is, however, less physically violent. If the way non-con is portrayed here makes you uncomfortable, nobody will be mad if you close the fic and walk away. Please, use your own discretion. (I'd like to add that while important imo for characterization, the sex is skipable for the story)

Erik was circling a holographic projection taking up most of the free space in his room when Charles came in. It took him a moment to look up from the notes he’d been taking. It was just enough time for Charles to catch his breath and settle on an expression Erik couldn’t really decipher. Anger and… something else.

“What!” Charles snapped. “Are you doing?”

Trained to absolute truthfulness in the face of his senior officers and especially Charles, Erik offered his notes. “I was studying.”

“What?!” Charles snatched the notes from Erik’s hand and skimmed them, his anger slowly cooling. “...Erik? What’s this?”

“I… eh… I went and asked for the recording. And…” Charles’ mood made him pause. He hadn’t seen Charles like that before. He didn’t dare look him in the eye. However, he did stand at ease, finding comfort in his training on unfamiliar ground. “I went over the video. Ten seconds at a time from a minute before it...” He took a breath. “Before I misstepped, stumbled and instead of rolling out of the way, stood up again. I was an easy target. This was wrong. I did wrong.” He cleared his throat. “I think… if I ever slip like that again, I have to move immediately. Every second makes a direct hit more likely.”

Charles blinked, so Erik went on.

“I… I had an AI run a simulation of different approaches.” Explaining what he was doing felt easier now that he’d started talking. “And using the momentum to slide a bit further seems viable but I still have to get back on my feet after. If I roll, I can just…” He caught Charles’ expression and faltered.

“Did you?” Charles had to clear his throat. “Did you come up with this… this rationalization… all on your own?” His face softened into the smile Erik was used to.

“Ehm… not exactly.” Erik gestured at the hologram. “I did the analysis and the scenarios all on my own. But… I… ehm.” He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone outside the project. Still, the old man had known Charles. “I asked somebody. In the gym. This morning. About what I should do. Running it off wasn’t working and I didn’t want to bother you when you were busy because of me…”

Charles sighed. “Somebody in the gym?” He was already searching around on his pad, no doubt looking for whoever had been at the gym at the same time as Erik. He frowned for a second. Erik tried to ignore how uneasy that made him. “What else did he tell you?” Charles sounded tired.

“To…” Erik had to clear his throat. Cursing had been a stable with the officers training them, but none of the subjects of the project ever had gotten quite the hang of it. “I quote. Get my shit together.”

Charles looked at him blankly for several moments. Then, he started to shake softly, one hand pressed against his mouth, both arms pressed against his chest. It took Erik a second to realize Charles was laughing. “Did it work?” Charles eventually asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Erik admitted truthfully. “But I feel better. Less lost.”

Charles reached up to stroke Erik’s cheek. Involuntarily, Erik leaned into the touch. “That’s good,” Charles assured him. “I was worried about your gloomy mood.” His thumb brushed under the corner of Erik’s eye, mindful of the cut. “Do you still hurt?”

For a second, Erik closed his eyes. He’d almost forgotten about his injuries. Still, a dull, constant, pain in his chest remained, sparked by each breath anew. “Only a little.” He touched his chest as close to the bruise as he dared. “Mostly here. The cut’s fine.”

“Good,” Charles breathed out. “Did you take painkillers?”

Erik shook his head. “No. The doctor said to take them if I need them. And I don’t hurt so much anymore.”

“And food?” Charles stroked down from Erik’s cheek to his neck. “I saw you ordered your lunch to be brought here but did you eat it?”

Erik nodded.

“Very good.” With his hand on the back of Erik’s neck, he pulled him down, almost into a kiss. “But you didn’t get around to dinner yet, right? So how about we…?” A timer alert interrupted Charles, making him let go of Erik and spin around. “What the…?” he murmured as he looked for the source of it. The hologram had vanished.

Looking somewhat remorseful, Erik turned the alarm off. “I was told to do the analysis for twelve hours at most,” he informed Charles, pressing his lips together. He’d really have liked to be kissed.

Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He did do that, didn’t he?” He sighed, before his smile returned. “Not too bad an idea, actually. And like a good boy, you set a timer.” Charles nodded, mostly to himself. Then, he looked up, back at Erik. His expression was carefully blank. “L– this man you talked to. Do you like him?”

Erik frowned for a moment. He didn’t really understand the question. He’d only asked him for advice because… what? Because they had been alone. Because he was using the gym usually on used by people working on the project—or its subjects. Because he’d looked… old. Experienced. A veteran who’d somehow managed to survive, if only with one out of four limbs intact. “No,” Erik concluded.

“No?” Charles looked like he was suppressing laughter again. “Why?”

“He was looking like the person I’d like to ask for advice based on his likely experience,” Erik explained. “I don’t know him. We talked for maybe twenty minutes. I don’t know if I like him. But I’d talk to him again.”

“Fair enough.” Charles nodded. “And good. Because I very much intend to send you on your next deployment with him.”

Erik remained carefully neutral. He didn’t really care. Whatever ever Charles would order him to do, he would do well.

Charles, not expecting a reaction from Erik, went on to change the subject. “So, about earlier,” he said with a soft smile. “Dinner? Together?”

Erik nodded eagerly, without even thinking.

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

After dinner, Erik stayed in Charles’ two room apartment he had on site for being the director of the base. Charles hadn’t even needed to ask. By now, it was enough if he didn’t tell Erik explicitly to leave. In the start, it’d been different. Erik had to keep asking, every time he wanted to stay. He couldn’t even really remember the first time, despite it only being a couple of years ago. It had become routine, almost natural so fast. And with time, he’d gone from staying in Charles’ apartment, in Charles’ bed, once a week to almost every day, the only exceptions being before important training days or when Charles was too busy to be bothered by anyone, including Erik.

Even though Charles had been busy last night, he’d still had let Erik stay. Thinking of that made Erik feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

“Are you thinking about anything good in particular, love?” Charles asked, carding a hand through Erik’s hair. “You’re smiling.”

Erik shifted his head on Charles’ chest so he could look at him better. “I just like being here. With you.”  
Charles slowly breathed out. “I like having you here, too.”

Erik propped himself up on an elbow. “Can I kiss you?”

“Whatever happened to you just wanting to sleep in the same bed as me,” Charles laughed, pulling him closer with a hand at the back of Erik’s neck. “Of course you can kiss me.”

Erik leaned in, carefully nipping at Charles’ lips like Charles had taught him. Charles’ hand slipped from his neck to his shoulder, and further down, so Charles could stroke over his back. Erik’s eyes slipped closed again.

Eventually, Charles ended the kiss. It was just a minute change, but one Erik had learned to recognize before Charles had to tell him to stop. It was like the median between no reaction and actively working against. Once that line was crossed, Charles would be irritated. Erik didn’t want Charles irritated. It’d mean he hadn’t been good enough.

So, Erik pulled back, sitting up a little, and waited.

“What would you like to do?” Charles asked full of wonder. His expression, too, was more open than Erik was used to.

Erik needed to think about the unexpected question for a moment. “I would like to be fucked by you, please,” he concluded.

“Hm…” Charles ran his thumb over the line of Erik’s unmarked eyebrow. “No. I don’t think that’ll do today.”

Erik did his best to hide his disappointment.

Charles leaned up to kiss his temple. “Why don’t you try to get me into the right mood for that, love?” he offered. “Think of something. And when you’ve done well, I’ll fuck you as a reward.”

Erik nodded eagerly. This was definitely better than just a plain no. “Thinking of something means I can try whatever I’d like?” Erik asked for clarification.

“Yes. Anything you can come up with.” Charles smiled mildly. “Try and surprise me.”

Surprise Charles. Erik swallowed. He didn’t think he could come up with enough ideas to surprise Charles. There were a few things, however, that he remembered Charles liking, small things that Charles had never explicitly asked Erik to do and generally didn’t encourage but still liked. Like…

Erik shuffled toward the foot of the bed, before he climbed on Charles, straddling his legs, their knees roughly at the same height. He bent down. Inch by inch, he folded Charles’ shirt up, following the hemp with his mouth and kissing the newly revealed skin. He could feel Charles shiver lightly when he kissed a spot a little above his belly button. For just about a second, Erik allowed himself to feel pride that his plan was working.

This way, eventually, he’d the shirt rolled up far enough that it was mostly bunched up under Charles’ arms. Very much on purpose, Erik had avoided touching Charles nipples. He still was, tracing Charles’ ribs and sternum with his tongue, only ever getting so near that his breath might tickle over a nipple, yet never making the contact of an actual touch.

It was a gamble. Charles wasn’t used to being made to wait. Erik would always try to anticipate what Charles wanted as not to make him wait even a second. This, now, could either make Charles very irritated. Or it could work out and be the surprise Charles’d asked for.

Mindful not to accidentally break the rhythm he’d gotten himself into, Erik looked up at Charles’ face from the corner of his eye. Much to his relief, Charles’ eyes were closed, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly to allow for easier breathing. From all Erik could tell, he looked like he was enjoying himself.

Eventually, however, Charles grew restless under Erik’s touches. Minute as it might have been, it told Erik that he’d better move on, transition his teasing to a more direct approach. First, he kissed Charles on his left nipple, then his right, before admitting that he couldn’t put his mouth at the same time. So, while he traced the other rim of one nipple with his tongue, he mimicked the motion with his fingers around the other. Slowly, he let his movements spiral inward, until he was tonguing at the very tip.

Charles allowed this to go on for far longer than Erik had expected. Erik, who could feel himself getting hard from feeling Charles’ chest move with short breaths and moans alone, from tasting his skin. He wasn’t entirely certain and didn’t want to touch Charles there without permission, but he suspected Charles was also slowly getting aroused by Erik’s effort. At least, if the way his hand once twitched toward his crotch was any indication.

However, Charles did eventually put a hand on Erik’s shoulder, not to pet, but to gently direct him further down. Knowing what Charles likely meant by that, Erik slid further down again, working his lips over Charles’ belly once more, not stopping until he’d reached the hem of Charles’ shorts. Then, he looked up, wanting the permission of Charles’ nod to proceed. Only then did Erik push the shorts down, freeing Charles’ mostly hard prick from its confines.

“Don’t use your hands, love,” Charles breathed.

Erik obeyed, putting his hands left and right of Charles’ hips, supporting his weight on them, before he lowered his mouth to the prick. Following the same basic principles he’d used before, Erik started with kisses to the base, working his way up with gentle nibbles and more kisses, until he finally reached the tip. There, Erik ran his tongue over the slit, tasting the salty precum. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax, even his breathing so he could breath through his nose more than through his mouth. Taking the head of Charles’ cock in his mouth wasn’t hard. Nor were the first few inches. Not until it hit the back of Erik’s mouth. Another few deep breaths. A few swallows. Suppressing his gag reflex still meant work to Erik but it did come easier now. He didn’t tear up as badly anymore. He could push on knowing that after the initial resistance it was less of a task for him to get more of it in.

Once he’d managed to swallow Charles’ entire length, pubic hair tickling his nose at the lowest point, he fell into a rhythm, slow at first but working up speed as quickly as he could, not too keen on forcing Charles to buck up into him because he moved too slow. Erik moaned softly around the cock filling his entire mouth. It was enough and too little at the same time, making him oh so eager for more. His own dick was almost painfully hard. He couldn’t help moving his hips from time to time, wishing Charles would tell him to stop, to turn around, and would then proceed to fuck him, most of Charles’ weight on him as he’d take him from behind.

Charles still bucked up, eventually. Erik did his best not to protest, not even when Charles put a gentle hand on the back of  his head. It wasn’t enough to hold him in place if Erik actually fought against it, but a suggestion that he should take what he was given. Erik moaned against the next thrust, deep in his chest, just short of a growl.

“How’d you like it,” Charles panted between bucks. “If I’d fucked your mouth for once, love?”

Erik tried to protest. As he was, however, all the sounds he made were illegible. So, instead, he pulled a face and lightly shook his head, as hard as he dared without fear of hurting Charles.

“No?” Charles asked, brushing his hand up over the short hair at the back of Erik’s head. He sighed.

For a moment, Erik feared, reflexively, not from experience, that this once, Charles wouldn’t allow a no. He’d sounded harsher than when he was about to coax a yes out of a no. But Charles never forced him to do things he didn’t want to. Talk him into changing his mind, yes, but he’d never use force. Erik relaxed again. He trusted Charles.

“Love, I don’t think I can come like this today,” Charles said and then moaned as Erik gently suckled at his dick. He laughed. “No, not even like that.”

Erik wriggled his butt, trying to get Charles’ attention.

Again, Charles sighed. Yet, he still took his hand off Erik’s head. “If you’re sure I won’t hurt you…” He trailed off, having to catch his breath. “Oh fine,” he groaned. “Get on your back then, and spread your legs.”

Erik hurried to comply with the order, not even pausing long enough to wipe the drool off his chin until he was lying down. He spread his legs immediately to make enough room for Charles to comfortably kneel between them, lube he’d snatched from the nightstand in hand. As always after a blow job, Erik’s mouth felt funny, his jaw muscles protesting the unusual work they’d to do. His lips were tingling from the stretch, too.

With well practiced motions, Charles lubed Erik up, scissoring him until he was satisfied with how stretched Erik was. It couldn’t have taken longer than a couple of minutes, however, as needy as Erik felt now that he finally had something inside him, it could just as well have been hours.

“You will tell me when I’m hurting you,” Charles said as he was already lining his cock up with Erik’s ass.

Erik nodded. He was holding as still as he could, breathing deeply. He wanted Charles inside him so bad.

At first, Charles’ cock was just a pressure against his ass, slowly sliding in and adding a stretch to the sensation. Erik kept his breath even, knowing it helped him to feel pleasure rather than pure pain. Charles had never been ungentle with him, but at the same time, no matter how gentle Charles had been, it had hurt the first couple of times. It still did, if they didn’t get around to it for a while or if Erik was too tense despite his eagerness. But at those times, a good grip on the sheets and even breaths helped. Were all he had to help.

Tonight, there was almost no pain. The burn of being stretched did never leave the sweet area of pleasure greatly outweighing the pain. Charles was taking it slow, Erik could tell. He just wasn’t entirely sure if that was due to care, or to punish him. Erik writhed. Charles was inside him and it was good and he was hot all over, but Charles moved so slow it hardly did anything to fill the need Erik felt.

“Please, Charles,” he whined after a while, when Charles still didn’t show any indication of speeding his lazy pace up a little.

“Shhh, love,” Charles breathed, leaning down to kiss Erik’s cheek. “Soon. I don’t wanna rush it.”

Erik wrapped his arms around Charles, holding onto him. He could tell Charles was avoiding his chest so not to hurt him. But he still wanted him close. He didn’t mind if it’d hurt.

Charles laughed softly. “This needy tonight?”

Erik nodded. He was definitely what Charles called needy tonight. He needed him. He needed to be fucked properly by him.

“Fine,” Charles laughed, kissing Erik’s nose. “Understood. C’mon, raise your hips a little.” He slipped his hand under Erik’s ass, coaxing him up until the angle he was fucking into Erik at was to his satisfaction. “Give me a cushion.” Erik complied, raising his hips a little more, so Charles could stuff the cushion under him.

In the new position, Charles finally started to thrust into Erik the way he’d wanted it from the beginning. Erik still held on to Charles’ shoulders, moaning in his ear and babbling incoherently about how much he loved Charles, how much he loved this, losing himself in the haze of being fucked. He didn’t even notice his orgasm build until it was almost too late. He bit his cheek, wanting to hold it off a little longer.

Charles brushed his thumb over Erik’s bitten cheek. “Shhh, love, you can come all you want,” he whispered against Erik’s lips. “I’m close, too, it won’t be long, I promise, love. It won’t even be long enough to get uncomfortable much.”

Despite nodding, Erik still tried to stall the inevitable. It didn’t work all that well, but he somehow managed to hold off about another minute, until, at a particularly vicious and deep thrust, he came, spilling his orgasm on his belly and Charles’, his moan close to a bitten of cry.

Charles had been right, he was close too. Erik couldn’t do much in his own post-orgasmic haze, but he didn’t need to. Once he’d dropped his hands from Charles’ shoulders, Charles sat up, holding Erik by his hips and thrusting into him, once, twice, a couple, until Charles came as well, buried deep inside Erik. Erik watched, his eyes on Charles’ stretched neck, watching the Adam’s apple bob a few times as Charles swallowed. From how his mouth had been hanging open, Erik assumed Charles’ throat must feel just as dry as his.

“Are you happy, love?” Charles asked, a soft smile on his lips. He blinked a couple of times, trying to focus on Erik’s face.

Erik nodded. He felt like he was wearing a terribly goofy smile at the moment. “I love you, Charles,” he whispered back, meaning every word.

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

Logan felt uneasy walking down these hallways. He always had. Charles probably knew that, too. It’d be just like him to change their meeting room at the last possible minute just to make him extra uncomfortable. He’d woken up to a message telling him to meet Charles an hour before the scheduled mission briefing. Right then, Logan had known he’d get yelled at. But it wasn’t until he’d reached the base and then gotten another message to meet Charles in the biolabs of the project, that it had sunk in just how mad Charles probably was at him.

Whenever he walked past the former dorm rooms, he felt like he could still hear small children cry. The silence of the present day only made him uneasier.

Charles was alone in one of the smaller biolabs when Logan entered. For another minute or two, he refused to look up from the microscope he’d been peering through, data readout scrolling on the holoscreen next to him. Logan could have tried to read it, but he’d long since decided that ignorance, especially in this case, was bliss. And probably lifesaving.

“You’re on time for once,” Charles observed. He sounded suspiciously calm. “I hadn’t expected you for another twenty minutes.”

Logan, not having moved a single step away from the door and toward Charles, shrugged. “I have a briefing in an hour.”

“So I noticed.” Finally, Charles took his eyes off the microscope, but only to look at the holoscreen instead. “Do you know why I wanted to talk?”

“I spoke to your project pet,” Logan ventured. “Without asking you first if we were allowed.”

Charles looked up, just to frown at Logan. “Quit being a smartass,” he said, before returning to his work. “I am mad at you and you know it. So, don’t make it worse. I could forget that I also wanted to praise you for at least not fucking up.”

“Fuck up what?” The words were out before Logan even realized what he’d said. No way to  take them back, he went on, “That kid’s already fucked up beyond any point of return. There’s no way to fuck up any worse”

“Thin ice, Logan,” Charles pressed out.

Considering the danger he was probably in, Logan decided to switch course. “So, did he follow my advice? Did it help?”

Charles sighed. “Yes.” There was a faint smile around his lips, his gaze fixed on something only he could see. “Yes to both. Followed the advice to the letter, actually. He even put an alarm on to shut the recording down exactly twelve hours after he started looking at it.”

“Good.” Logan let out an elated breath. He wouldn’t admit it to Charles, but he was actually somewhat proud that his idea had worked for the kid. “Means at least I won’t have to worry about him breaking during the mission.”

“He wouldn’t break during a mission,” Charles hissed. His eyes flickered over to a tray with lab accessory like rubber hoses, glass beakers, and scalpels. “He’d never. Ever. Break during a mission.”

Logan shrugged. So the mental health of his pet was a sore spot to Charles. Like he’d ever backed down when sensing only mild danger. “Did look pretty close to breaking down to me.” He dodged the well aimed beaker just barely. “You wouldn’t get angry if you didn’t at least partly agree.” This time, splintering glass hit his cheek, causing a cut. Logan cursed, wiping blood away.

“He wouldn’t break during a mission,” Charles snapped. “He’d break before or after. Not during. You’ve never seen him train for combat, have you? He’s passed where everyone else failed because he has focus. On his mission. And nothing else.”

Logan blinked. “How am I supposed to watch your project subjects train?” He wasn’t that kind of suicidal. There was a difference between wanting to stop living and wanting to be locked up alone in a dark hole until somebody found an useful way to kill him.

For a second, Charles’ anger smoothed into a frown. “Fair point,” he allowed. He still had a scalpel in hand, twirling it thoughtfully. “In that case, you’ll just have to believe me.”

Logan nodded. “Ok, fine, I believe you.” All too aware of the scalpel and Charles’ throwing ability, he didn’t add choice words like “created” and “broken” and “weapon” to the end of the sentence.

“He’s the one proof I have for the success of this project, Logan,” Charles said, softly. He put the scalpel down. “I will not allow you to ruin what I, and everyone on the project, worked so long for. He will prove that he fulfills everything this project set out to do. A human, capable of taking on the best, strongest, warmachines. Out-matching all AI. Getting through any defense. Unhackable, because who could hack a human mind.” He let out a long breath. “All I need now is proof. From an actual field deployment. Just so I can finally tell all those doubtful fools who think robot wars are great fun and profit that we’re not past human soldiers.”

Logan blinked. Something about what Charles had said… Most of the stuff he’d heard before, especially Charles steadfast belief that letting robots fight all the wars was stupid beyond any sense. That, if humans as a whole weren’t careful it’d eventually destroy everything. But, there had been something else. Something that a part of his mind was kicking and screaming to point out. Logan blinked again. “The one,” Logan murmured. “...what do you mean he’s the one? The last one? You had like… a hundred kids in this program, Charles. What, the fuck, do you mean?” He was shaking, his hand curling into a fist.

“Most didn’t react to our treatments the way we wanted them to. Some died in training accidents. Some…” Charles shrugged. “He’s the only one who’s been a success in every aspect. And now… What if we failed to prep him mentally? What if I failed?” He glared at Logan. “What if your cynicism and general disdain over being alive rubs off?”

“No, no, no, no, Charles.” Logan slammed his fist against the wall. **Thud**. It was either that or screaming. He felt terrible. Helpless. As if he failed people he hadn’t even known he could fail. “Back up again. Did you seriously put more than a hundred of kids, actual children, through a program only one will make it out of?”

“So what?!” Charles snapped back. “We need new soldiers. Better soldiers. Soldiers that can take on autonomous machines and actually win. Spies aren’t worth shit when nobody cares about civilian casualties. This isn’t the 2030s anymore, Logan. This isn’t before the great die off. Remember when Antarctica bloomed? Remember what happened when the AI reconstructing our climate back to the 2010s again got a little too intelligent and went rogue?” He picked the scalpel back up and rammed it into the desk. The thin blade splintered against the stone. “And now! Now! Companies treat wars, hah, _acquisitions_ , like football games. And all those great freaking weapons” He pulled a face. “Manufacturers get rich of fanning the flames.” He shuffled, his rapid breaths slowing again. The anger in his glare mellowed, out of a feeling Logan wasn’t sure how to name. Shame, maybe. “But, if it’s any consolation, with the data from the project I’m sure we could do it faster and with less… drop outs.” He made a throwaway gesture.

“Drop outs my arse,” Logan huffed. He didn’t have anything better to say. Vaguely, if he threw all emotions and ethics he had about engineering children into perfect weapons out, he did understand where Charles was coming from. Why Charles was afraid. Occasionally, media outlets ran stories about their generation when they had nothing better to publish. About how the die off, the rapid shift in climate twice in a single decade, all the dead, drowned, people and animals it had caused, had traumatized them like the world wars of old had traumatized their great grandparents. From there, it wasn’t all that hard to emphasize with Charles’ view, despite disagreeing with it. Logan bit his lip.

Charles was quiet for a long time, merely looking at Logan. “But you’ll help me keep him alive during the mission?” he said, softly, in the end.

“For him. Not you.” Logan crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I’m still protesting your methods.”

“So, what is it you’d have rather I’d done?” Charles leaned against the edge of the desk. “Indulge me.”

“Telling the initial project leads to fuck off and team up with our dear rogue climate AI to shut everything down.” Logan shrugged. “You know, that kind of megalomaniac bullshit.” He grinned.

“Oh. Good idea.” Charles nodded. “I’ll make sure to try that next.” He sighed. “Don’t think you’re off the hook. But… I’m glad you talked to him.” A grin. “He did say he doesn’t like you, though.”

“What? Me?” Logan gasped, overplaying the little hurt he felt.

“Yeah, I know,” Charles laughed. “How could anyone not like someone as obnoxious as you. Just, try to be some kind of role model for once? I should have considered him needing one, it seems.”

“What, you want him to look up to a fifty year old bastard?” Logan shook his head. “Don’t you have anyone better for him?”

Charles considered this for a moment. “No. You’re the only one who fits the bill. Still an active, if unruly, soldier whom I… trust. For a given amount of trust,” he added to not give Logan any ideas. “I want him to get old, you know?”

Logan sighed. He’d been afraid it’d be something like that. “I think, I get that, Charles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to activate premoderation for the comments because of this chapter. If your comment doesn't show up (or only a day late), that's why.  
> I will not approve any comments that I feel make it sound like the relationship between Charles and Erik is a romantic, consensual (healthy) one. Consent requires being able to say no and have that respected. Romance without consent isn't romance. That is not the kind of relationship I wrote.  
> I'm aware some in this fandom struggle with the concept. Those, I just ask not to go down under this fic and tell me how cute/sweet they think the Cherik part of this is. Thank you.


	3. Khopesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those concerned about character death please refer to the endnote.  
> I also would like to remind you that this is heavily inspired and not all just taken straight from the source material, which means that I KNOW that the MJÖLNIR armor doesn't come with servo motors. And the FAS Khopesh doesn't have smoke screens. Well, at least not in game, thank fuck.

Erik watched the old man. After the mission briefing, they’d both been sent to the armory, not talking the whole way from Charles’ office down. Erik had a hard time working out what to think of him. Some of the looks he’d shot Charles during the briefing had been anything but friendly, some even outright hostile. He seemed displeased by the mission on the whole. Questioning missions, or even just having feelings about them one way or another wasn’t something Erik expected of himself or others. As soldiers, shouldn’t they do what they were told?

Now, in the armory, Erik had been handed his usual gear, a rifle, a handgun, a handful of grenades. He’d been in his armor already when the briefing had started, with his helmet under his arm. Now, he’d been handed a chip with an AI he didn’t know yet to slot into the helmet. As soon as he’d put it on, he’d likely hear the AI’s voice immediately. He hadn’t often worked with AIs before, but something about how it felt disturbed him a little, deep down. He didn’t really like to know that there was something else near his mind, having at least some sort of interface he didn’t quite understand, with his body and especially nervous system.

Still, he was told the AI was there to help him and so he’d use it. It was just another part of his armor.

The old man, Logan, Charles had introduced him as Logan, hadn’t been handed weapons. Nobody had much acknowledged him, even. He’d just gone straight for a rack with rifles and stood there for a moment, picking up one rifle and then putting it down for another, until he eventually settled on a sharpshooter rifle which he slung over his shoulder. If Erik remembered it correctly, he wore it on the side without the arm augmentation. Then, Logan had gone on rummaging through weapons lockers at the far end of the room, from which Erik had never even seen weapons taken. He came back with a stun gun and a taser holstered to his belt. When he noticed Erik’s glance, he looked at him and shrugged, grinning a little. “Don’t need no more lethal weapons, got enough already.”

Erik merely shook his head. He didn’t understand the old man. And the more he saw, the less he liked him. Fleeing from having to answer him, Erik put on his helmet, eyes closed as he twisted it in place, eyes still shut when he heard it click in place and when he felt the AI connect to the socket at the back of his neck. He only opened them when he saw lights through his closed eyelids. The display was up and running, showing him now diagnostics in the corner of his vision, imposed on the world he could see through his visor.

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

Logan closed his eyes. They were on their way to their deployment, on board of a vert, its autopilot flying them to their drop-off. It was surprisingly quiet and clearly made for stealth above all else. Logan had ridden on them before. In his mind, he called all the verts of this type flying saucers. Something about them annoyed the part of him that could still remember how it’d been, when people drove their cars themselves, when cars still had tires and belonged to private people, not companies.

The boy was sitting opposite of him, for all Logan cared probably ignoring him. He’d darkened his visor the moment they’d sat down. Logan should just follow this cue and do the same, let the tinted glasses of the augs around his eyes slide out and just ignore everything until it was time.

Instead of catching a break, however, he’d taken out a holopad and was reading a shortened version of their briefing. Charles had gone into some detail, while still keeping it vague enough. They had somehow gotten wind of a relatively secret research laboratory of a private weapons manufacturing company. There would be a transport of either new parts or a fully assembled new robot model. That was the boy’s problem, however. He was there to, if possible, destroy the whole transport. Logan had seen FAS robots before, and somehow he didn’t share Charles’ optimism regarding the boy’s chances. But it wasn’t his problem, he told himself.

His problem would be getting into the lab, finding as many blueprints and research documents and then get the hell out again, preferably while the whole base was still in uproar over the attack on their transport.

No military markings, Charles had said. He’d even warned them. There would be no risks of either of them revealing anything, should they against all expectation get caught. Logan had understood it as a warning he’d be killed before there’d be any questioning. Apparently, Charles, or his bosses, were rather concerned FAS could work out who’d attack them and take revenge. There were rumors, some of which Logan had been made to verify before, that FAS stood a chance against US military. It wasn’t even a stretch, from what Logan had seen. Even if the US military had more personnel and machinery, FAS was keeping their best robots to themselves, only ever lending them out. There was a not exactly small likelihood they’d taken precautions against having their own robots used against them.

Logan sighed. For a moment, he could have sworn the boy’s head moved to look at him. However, he didn’t say anything, so Logan decided against trying to strike up another conversation. Clearly, the boy wasn’t much of a talker.

The boy had a name, as far as Logan knew, but the mission briefing only stated his… it was hard for Logan to think about it as anything else than a serial number. His own name was there. The boy’s wasn’t. But from the way Charles had said the boy’s name, Logan wasn’t too happy to use it, no matter how much he detested the stupid letter-and-number combination on the files. So, between cold anger and the sting of jealousy, he’d have to do with calling the boy a boy.

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

Erik was left alone almost as soon as the vert dropped them off. Their assigned positions were in opposite directions, not exactly at equal distance from the drop-off. Erik would have to walk just a little farther than the old man.

The laboratory was in a valley. Trees, mostly the ones with needles that allowed for shelter and cover all year round, were growing around it in a thick forest, obscuring the hillsides. They’d been dropped off just two hills away, far enough that their vert wouldn’t necessarily be spotted but also not too far for them to quickly get where they needed to be. With his armor and Logan’s physical augmentations, there shouldn’t be any problem traversing terrain, Charles had said.

Erik’s position was a little overhang just little ways down the road from the laboratory. There was only the one road, and no other settlements around for miles. They were operating outside what was, strictly speaking, US territory, Charles had reminded them. FAS had bought the land some years ago. That meant that they would have to be careful. The base itself, not that it concerned Erik much, but he’d still listened while Charles explained, consisted of a main complex and a couple units for staff housing and hangars for machines. There was a power plant, too, but it was hidden away underground. How large the underground facilities were, Charles had not been able to tell, not even when Logan had asked.

Erik wondered what exactly it was Logan would have to retrieve, as Charles had put it. They had gone over a couple of blueprints, likely layouts of the main complex, but everything had sounded so vague to Erik. There had been no clear instructions anywhere in what Charles had said, at least aside from “go into the main office and copy me what you can”. It didn’t sound right to Erik, either. Don’t get seen, don’t kill if you don’t have to, get in, get out, bring back data. He was aware that recon missions were necessary, useful even, but spying? Stealing other’s data and work? Erik wasn’t too sure about that, even if Charles had insisted that it was important. That, again, had been upon Logan’s demand for an answer.

The constant questioning had gotten on Erik’s nerves. He was somewhat glad he was alone now, without somebody that tried to talk to him unprompted. Without somebody that questioned Charles at every possible turn.

He gripped his rifle a little tighter.

The overhang was quiet when he reached the top of it. Some undergrowth had found its way onto the rock, growing just close enough to the edge that Erik could wait in its cover and still see the road beneath. After that, it was just a matter of waiting.

Erik wasn’t too sure how long he’d spent flat on his belly waiting. It didn’t matter. Before he could even see the convoy itself, he heard drones flying overhead. It was just a small swarm of five, scanning the road ahead and the woods left and right of it. Slowly, as to not give his position away with too rapid a movement, Erik reached for his handgun. No point in using the rifle. Still, even though he had the first drone in his sight and was ready to shoot, he waited. The head of the convoy had just turned around the nearest hill. Erik recognized one of the FAS standard combat robot models. He’d stared at simulations of their fighting pattern for hours, had fought countless in training. It wouldn’t be a problem. So he waited some more, let one or two of the transport vehicles pass, three more of the robots. Whatever they were transporting, it was important enough for heavy guard.

Suddenly, a light on Erik’s helmet display started to flash. He turned his head to one of the vehicles. The AI in his armor had marked this vehicle, no different from any of the others, as his main target. Destroy the defenses, look inside, destroy the transport vehicles. Simple plan. Easy.

Erik took a deep breath.

Five shots from his handgun was all it took to bring down the drones. Not that Erik could afford to miss. As soon as the first drone exploded, the whole convoy came to a stop. Some of the robots anchored themselves in the ground, readying their heavy weaponry. One of them scanned for him. When the last drone went down, not even ten seconds later, the first robot fired on the overhang Erik had been lying on just a moment earlier. He hadn’t been there, had rolled to the edge and was now sliding down the slope. He readied his rifle.

Taking out the first robot was easy. They were big, heavy. Meant to destroy tanks. They weren’t meant to attack targets as small as a single human. All Erik had to do, and he knew he would have to, was to stay in motion. They couldn’t deal with quick targets. He hit the reactor of the first when his feet touched the road, then jumped out of the way, using the nearest transport vehicle for cover. It only needed a little help from the small jet packs on his back to jump over the vehicle, hit the next robot at its rocket launcher, disabling that part of it.

Easy. Just breathe. Keep moving.

Erik ran, getting enough momentum to slide through under the robot he’d just disarmed off its rockets. All-terrain, spidery legs instead of wheels or tracks was a weird quirk in FAS constructions, one that was all too simple to abuse for Erik. Behind him, the robot turned, the machine gun whirring to life. In front of him, the next robot readied its rockets. Erik rolled to his feet, waiting just long enough for the rockets to fire at him before jumping to the side. One of the rockets hit the damaged robot, stopping the tinkling noise of machine gun bullets hitting armor plating.

_Plink. Plink. Plink. Pli-_

Erik turned, rolled. Another shot, another reactor hit, another attack to dodge. It was easy to fall into rhythm. Dangerous, too, if he failed to recognize the change to the battle’s melody. Two more robots went down before he even got hit, his shields flashing in protest. The display in his helmet changed, too, warning him that he’d need to be careful for the next couple of seconds while the shield’s capacitors reloaded. Erik slid behind a transporter, waiting, using the moment for a brief glance at the energy level of his rifle. Half full still and charging at the same time as the shield. Good.

The robots were wising up to him, he could see that. They’d started to take up tactical positions, the one at the front and the one in the back anchored, leaving him no way out other than above. Their rockets had hit parts of the convoy, destroying less important transport vehicles and  thus costing Erik cover. The few remaining robots within the convoy had switched from slow rockets to machine gun fire, focusing ahead of wherever Erik was while he was running, forcing him to zigzag through them. He almost ran into a robot at one point, using his momentum to jump against it instead, pulling himself up to its top with his hands while pushing his legs against the front, flipping in the air so he could bring his heels down, hard, cracking the armoring and sending sparks flying. Another quick shot and that robot, too, was dealt with.

Smoke, black and thick, filled the air above the road, between two low hills. Erik’s armor had long since switched to internal life support systems, no risk of him running out of air from it. With the display marking down heat sources, sight, too, was of little concern.

Erik ran up to the robot in the back of the convoy when only the two remained. It was trickier now, the path to it was mostly empty, which meant he was giving it chances to hit him and knew it. The rubble didn’t factor as cover against rockets, not as much as he’d liked. But his shield was back up again, at full capacity. There was only a fraction of a second’s hesitation before he ran, in a straight line. The rocket hit him square in the chest when he stopped, momentarily taking out his shield, but he was also in position to shoot, to hit, to take out the robot like all the ones before, forcing himself out of the way with a thrust from his jet packs so as not to feel the explosion he’d caused.

One last robot left, all the way down the road, with only a few transport vehicles left intact. Erik guessed that was no accident, that he could use them for cover.

He glanced at his shield display. 25% and rising. His rifle was down to 16% now. Even if he took his time and still managed to avoid a hit, there wasn’t enough time for either to reload for a proper fight. Another direct hit.

Erik reached for his belt, picking up one of the grenades. He’d just have to get close enough for a clean throw. He ran, picking the route with the thickest smoke and jumping over the rubble, barely avoiding rockets crashing into the asphalt left and right of him. Then, the rockets stopped and the machine gun picked up pace, forcing Erik to take cover.

40%. 34%.

He threw the grenade when the machine gun stopped. He didn’t wait to see if he’d hit. Instead, he rolled, jumped back on his feet and ran, just barely making it out of the way before the rocket hit his cover.

And then, there was silence, broken only by Erik’s own heavy breathing and the noises of the fires. Erik closed his eyes for a second. Allowed his armor to recharge rifle and shield fully. Then, he stepped up to the nearest vehicle.

It was nothing special. A container on a vert designed to be used on streets, without a cockpit or any space really for a human passenger. Erik forced the doors of the container open, the servos of his armor helping his efforts. Inside the container were metal parts, gray and shiny. They were long and covered in plates not unlike gigantic scales. It took a moment for Erik to realize what they reminded him of. Tentacles.

The other vehicle that hadn’t been marked contained the same, to Erik’s amazement. Massive tentacles.

The last, his target, was larger than the other two. Inside, on wooden pallets, were drills. Or, rather, what would happen if a drill met a pine cone. They looked sharp. And hard. Erik swallowed. They looked like they were meant to just eat through any kind of rock. Each drill was thicker than he was high and had to be placed lying down to fit. There were four of them in the container. A sudden shiver went down his spine.

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

The room was quiet now that Logan was standing behind the desk, looking at the holo screen. It had been quiet as he'd entered, too, just not exactly as quiet in the half a minute between the two events, when he'd taken out the office's owner with a quick shot of his stungun and then tied him up in a corner. He'd decide what to do about that when he'd leave. Black smoke was curling over the forest, plainly visible through the window from this height. Logan suspected it was the boy's doing. He also suspected that the people in overalls running around down between the hangars had something to do with it. Or with the broken tree stumps around the road which had been whole trees when Logan had entered the main building of the complex.

He sighed. The difference between letting children grow into their own people and being an ass, he decided, was sometimes telling them things instead of just waiting how they dealt with it all on their own. He picked the small box that held an earpiece from the pouch on his belt and poked the thing into his ear. He could hear a crackling as the connection was established. Sometimes, his augs were useful, Logan reluctantly had to admit.

Absentmindedly, he stopped the holo screen from going into standby. He didn't have the time to hack into it. While it was running, he hopefully wouldn’t need to. Experience told him that while all organizations liked to lock their accounting away behind password after biometric scan after password, files people, especially engineers, worked with, rarely were, once you accessed them from within the network. The folder he was looking for wasn’t even hidden, he noticed after a few idle clicks. They’d even called the folders in the path he went down “R&D”, “engineering” and then the names of lines of FAS robots. Logan opened the one named “Chariot”, the only one he didn’t recognize from the catalogue. It had only three subfolders.

There was a click in his ear a moment before he heard the boy’s voice. “I thought we said no communications.” He sounded a bit strained and out of breath. Something wasn’t quite right.

“And I thought you’d like to know they’ve deployed backup, kiddo,” Logan laughed. “Relax. This line of communications is safe. Or at least, it hasn’t gotten me caught yet.” He was pretty sure Charles was listening in. In fact, he just _knew_ Charles was probably seeing whatever the boy was seeing.

“Yeah, well, I hope they’re taking their time, then, because this transport doesn’t really want to burn.” The strain in the boy’s voice had grown more pronounced. Logan wondered why he didn’t just curse a little. That sentence begged for a good curse or two.

Logan opened the folder labeled “Scarab”. He read over the first file, then the next, color slowly draining from his face. “Forced overwrite,” he murmured.

Outside, a large explosion shook the area.

“Finally.” Again, Logan’s ears half-waited for a curse that never came out of the boy’s mouth.

Logan didn’t respond. Instead, he opened the next subfolder. “Khopesh” were those weird swords from ancient Egypt, if Logan remembered correctly. He only knew because his parents had liked thirty year old movies when he’d been a kid anyway. The thoughts were far at the back of his mind, though, while a not inconsiderable other part of it was frantic to point out all the firepower. That was, before he realized what fueled them and all his thoughts focused on that.

The only reason why his fingers didn’t shake when he opened the last of the three subfolders was that his metal arm filtered the command from his subconscious out. His other hand, even curled up into a fist as it was, did shake.

“More than two hundred meters,” Logan mumbled as he read the schematic of the last warbot model. “Crawls over mountains.” He swallowed. “Replication of the other two. Biomass fueled.”

“Logan?” Charles’ voice sounded far away in his ear.

Logan didn’t respond. He was looking at the holographic interface in front of him, trying desperately to reconcile what he was reading with the believe that humanity as a whole wasn’t all suicidal idiots. That within every chain of command, there would be at least three people going “destroying the entire world is a bad idea even if it’ll make us a slight profit because we’d all die then”.

“Logan!” Charles’ raised his voice, trying to get Logan’s attention.

Logan cursed.

“What the hell is going on?” Charles demanded.

“This is bad,” Logan declared. “Charles… can you get me retroactive permission to have our AIs, or something, anything, track every single download of a file? I need a worm. Please.”

“Why…?” Charles went silent. Logan had just downloaded the “Chariot” folder and sent it to him. “What is this…?”

“If you want my best guess, an about container sized robot with several heavy weapons and a lot of tiny legs,” the boy guessed. His voice sounded strained to the breaking point.

“...Eh... “ Logan clicked back to one of the previous documents. “Khopesh.” He felt the world shift a little around him. The sword of a dominating empire. He wished he could just bark at an AI to display him a feed of the boy’s helmet camera the way Charles did. The boy had to be standing between rubble and former warbots after the fight. He had to be looking at the same machine Logan was. Only, he wasn’t looking at schematics. He was looking at a moving, likely fully functional prototype. At least Logan hoped it was and they hadn’t gone into factory production yet. “Erik, whatever you do, stay out of its way,” Logan hissed through clenched teeth. “This is an order! Do not engage. Whatever you do, don’t let it hit you. Get away if you can.”

“I don’t think that’s viable,” Erik admitted. “It’ll spott me. Talk to you on the other side.” There was a click as the boy cut the line off.

Logan slammed his fist down on the desk. It hurt, since he’d done it with his natural arm, but that was only too well. It got Logan back to thinking, to the here and now.

“Will you give me a worm now, Charles?” he pleaded. Swallowing fear before it could turn into anger was always hard. He fumbled with the cover he’d removed from over the computer’s access ports. “Augs are useful,” he muttered under his breath, still not believing it even when he could pull half a finger off his hand and reveal a plug fit for the port. His normal hand spun the finger on the desk for lack of better things to do.

“Sent it a minute ago,” Charles informed him. “Upload it and then get out.”

Logan did. It was a small worm, the upload didn’t take more than a moment. All the better for it, Logan thought. Poking his fingers in plugs made him uneasy. When he turned and stepped away from the desk, the worm had already started working. It would start wiping data in a couple of minutes.

His glance fell on the unconscious scientist. Logan kneeled down in front of him. One, two slaps and the man was coming to again. Logan was ready for the scream, holding the man’s mouth shut with an iron grip. “One question. Just one,” Logan growled. “Do you answer directly to your boss of bosses for the _Chariot_ development?”

He could feel the man try to nod.

“And you’re in charge here?” Logan asked sweetly.

Another try at a nod.

“It didn’t occur to you that all of that is bloody stupid even for normal weapons tech standards?”

A headshake.

“You didn’t protest the encryption?”

A headshake.

“You though fueling them with biomass was a good idea?”

A nod.

“Well then.” Logan switched hands so it was his natural hand on the man’s mouth. He let the hand of his aug slide back, revealing a muzzle. The man’s eyes widened. “The one question is: what is the price for the terrors you have brought upon us?”

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

Erik staggered to his feet. The ground was shaking with each step the giant robot took. There were six legs, making it look like a giant insect carrying a much too large box on its back. The asphalt cracked and broke under it. Erik wasn’t sure why he even noticed. It was far less important than everything else.

There wasn’t much cover left. It had taken some part scavenging to build enough bombs to get rid of his targets. Triangular plates that had survived the blast were sticking in the hills, the road, the thin strips of grass between; some bent, some possibly useable as cover. None big enough that one could tell they’d been part of a tentacle like structure mere minutes ago. The verts had almost all melted. Even at what he’d thought to be safe distance, the impromptu explosives had taken out his shield.

It had come back to full strength just as the ground had started to shake noticeably.

The shield, Erik felt like, would be important. He could count three different weapons systems at first glance, at either side of the rectangular body. Two hanging machine gun turrets; two grenade launchers, nested between heavy plating; two more turrets on top. He shivered. It looked like it was meant to crush the robots he’d just taken out without much of a thought. It did; the sound of protesting metal as the giant combat robot stepped on the remains of one of its fallen allies made him wince.

The patter of bullets hitting his shield jerked him out of his reverie. The frequency wasn’t high enough to do anything, it didn’t even inconvenience him. Yet. It was, however, a reminder that this could change very quickly, as soon as the robot, the Khopesh, the old man had said, realized it wasn’t doing anything. It already did, with more and more bullets hitting even though he’d started to move, running for cover behind the debris. His shield was slowly but surely losing capacity.

Out of sight, the prattle stopped, at least for a moment. Long enough for Erik to wonder and then to jump up and run for the next cover when he noticed the grenade hitting the ground right next to him.

There was no explosion.

Smoke filled the air instead, obscuring the road, debris, the trees and, above all, the Khopesh and Erik himself. Erik let out a breath for a moment. Obscuring the scene with smoke didn’t help a target much when it was as big as a container. Only, as the sudden urgent beeping in his helmet warned him, it was no ordinary smoke. In flashing red, his armor warned him that all targeting assistance systems were going offline.

If Erik had known how, he’d have cursed. As it was, all he could do was breathe out a frustrated “No!”

He needed a plan. He needed to think while he moved, while he tried to not get hit by the machine guns always trained on him, while he did his best not to think about what would happen if the Khopesh remembered it had more than just one weapons system. Mostly, he needed to pick every opportunity to shoot back.

He did. He did hit, too, more guessing than aiming, one of the legs and the machine guns, a couple of times each. But it didn’t do anything or not enough and whenever he shot he lost a percentage or five of his shield capacity. It was already nearing 50%, rising ever so slowly only to jump back down each time he stood still for... any time really.

A cloud of black smoke erupted when he somehow managed to take out the machine gun turret closest to him. He didn’t have time for elation. The Khopesh was now readying its other weapons, lights on what Erik thought of as its shoulders suddenly glowing in ominous red. With a horrible crack of asphalt, six horrible cracks all at once, the Khopesh anchored itself. The turrets on its shoulders rose. It didn’t even seem to mind much that Erik was now shooting at its legs again, the glowing hot coils that had risen out of them easy to target. He somehow even managed to break two or three of them before his rifle ran out of power, forcing him to slow down his attack. Losing half its legs didn’t bother the anchored Khopesh.

It shot two missiles at him. Erik dodged them on instinct and reflex alone, then turned when he didn’t hear them explode. The missiles, he realized, were turning, too. It was all too well that the smokescreen was fading or he’d realized it too late. He was still late to realize it, now having to find a cover that got him out of the constant machine gun fire and away from the missiles both.

He slid behind a bit of tentacle debris just inches ahead of one of the missiles. The impact bent the metal, knocked Erik off his feet and sent him rolling, stumbling. He tried to will his body out of the way. Quick. He knew the other missile wasn’t far behind. Move. If he could just…

The missile hit him in the back, just about where his jetpacks where. His shield flickered and was gone in an instant. He was pushed across the ground for a stretch. More and more warnings filled the edge of his vision, his ears, all his senses that mattered. His armor protested, the small reactor on his back suddenly being its sole focus for damage control. He’d lost the jetpacks the diagnostics practically screamed at him. His back hurt. His ears were ringing.

But the armor held. For now. Bullets couldn’t get through it, not quick at least. Not even when they were still hitting him every other fraction of a second. Continuing like this, his shield wouldn’t come back for a long time.

He felt a prick in his upper arm. If he’d paid attention to all the warnings overwhelming him, he’d have noticed the little information that the AI had decided he needed to be drugged. As it was, he merely welcomed that the pain in his back and head was fading as he got up, picking his rifle back up again when he was already running, forcing himself out of the line of fire.

No time to catch his breath. No waiting. Waiting meant more missiles.

There was a noise. Erik had never heard anything like it before. A whirring. A whisper. A dying groan of thousands of wooden splinters. When he looked up, he could see a stream of tiny dark dots, coming from a tree on the hill as it vanished, getting sucked to the Khopesh…

From one moment to the next, Erik’s targeting assistance system was back. It marked the middle section of the Khopesh, where the legs and its body connected. He more understood it in his muscles than actually knew that he’d had to get the cover, the armor plating there, off and destroy what was underneath. For a second, he thought he heard a voice.

The noise stopped.

Erik didn’t care. Couldn’t. He’d gotten up and ran, zigzagging and firing back at the machine gun, with no real thought in his mind. When the machine gun stopped and his rifle didn’t, couldn’t fire anymore, he dropped it, losing the unwanted baggage. He jumped over one of the legs, then on another, forcing his fingers under the plating, denting the plate above to make room. The servos of his armor protested the overuse but held. The plating gave way, inch by inch. It ripped off.

A leg Erik noticed too late caught him in the side. The kick flung him back, sending him crashing into the hillside. The Khopesh turned its body. Erik, his body protesting every bit of movement, pushed himself up. Tried to. His arms wouldn’t move. Nor his legs for that matter. He wasn’t entirely sure which way was up anyway.

His eyes were fixed at the Khopesh ahead. It wasn’t launching any missiles. Instead, there was a glowing, getting brighter and brighter that Erik’s sluggish mind identified as “laser heating up to fire” without yet making the connection that it would fire at him, therefore making it vitally important that he wasn’t there anymore when it did.

Erik got to his knees, by sheer coincidence. He got a leg under him and that was even more of a wonder to him. The second protested a bit, but by then it was too late. The laser was a second away from firing.

Erik closed his eyes.

He opened them a couple of moments later when nothing had happened. The lights in the Khopesh had gone out. It smoked a little, not just from the destroyed machine gun turrets, but also from its exposed middle. There was a hole through the wires and circuit boards, quite a big one, too, large enough for Erik to notice at the distance when he concentrated.

The beeping of his armor was getting on his nerves. From what he could tell, his shield was gone for good. As were his jetpacks. Some parts of the armor were damaged enough to not deserve being called armor anymore. The servos in his right arm had been broken, likely by his stupid stunt with the plating. The other little servo motors around his body, his armor, were in various states of damage but working still, so that was a relief. His ribs hurt, his back and neck hurt, but unlike the warning messages in his helmet’s display he couldn’t just make it disappear and ignore it. There was a crack on his display. He blinked at it when he noticed.

“Connecting.”

The message filled his entire vision, blue-ish white on blue, for a moment. Then, he could hear the old man’s voice around him. Erik almost sagged with relief. “You fucking alive, kiddo?”

“Yeah,” Erik said, his throat urging him to cough. He winced when he did. His ribs really hurt. “I think I dropped my rifle somewhere.”

There was a coarse laugh from the old man. “You still got a couple of moments til I get there. You think you can find it in that time?” His words came out slow and deliberate as if he wanted to make sure Erik had time to understand him.

“It’s…” Erik took a step forward, almost stumbling. Then another. Once more. It was easier with each one. He could learn what movements were still safe. “It’s on the road. I can see it.”

The rifle was a mess, Erik realized when he picked it up. Something had hit it and bent it a little. It had bullet holes and lost quite a bit of paint. He laughed softly. All things considered, it probably looked better than he himself did. Still, as he held it in his left hand, he wondered if it was even worth taking back. He couldn’t put it in its holster. From what the AI screamed at him, he had to assume the back of his armor was badly bent out of shape.

A vert, a small one, barely big enough for two people and looking like a bike or a buggy Erik had once seen in history lessons he’d barely paid attention to, stopped next to him. When he turned, he was faced with the old man, looking worried. He hadn’t even heard the vert over the white noise in his ears.

“Can you hop on?” the old man asked slowly.

Erik wordlessly handed him the rifle. Getting on the vert behind the old man wasn’t too hard. Erik held on with his one good arm. “Ready to get out of here.”

Logan patted his knee once. _Clonk._ Metal on metal. “Just don’t fall off. Rendezvous for extraction is a couple of miles ahead.”

Erik nodded. He felt the pricking in his arm again. The display before his eyes was full of warnings not to fall asleep just yet. And, in the corner, a map of the area. “I think I know where.” It made him feel less useless. Less tired. Something to focus on.

“Good. Because I don’t. And I need you to tell me.”

The vert went from standing still to moving without a hitch. Erik barely felt it whenever Logan had to turn to avoid crashing into debris but soon enough, the road ahead was clear and they sped away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no MCD. I'd have tagged it. There is, however, an implied death of a minor, very minor character. Oh and lots of robots getting destroyed. If that counts.


	4. Beaten And Bruised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter has consequences. Physical and psychological. Both get described here. Beware! (Look, it's in the tags)

Erik drifted in and out of consciousness. He was pretty sure somebody was sitting by his bedside every time he woke up, but he wouldn’t stay awake long enough to learn who. Once, he thought he heard a conversation, angry hisses between Logan and Charles.

“What are you doing here?” Charles had asked, anger heating each word.

“Watching,” Logan had spit back. “Making sure he gets his rest.”

“Just rest, Logan?” Sweet poison in Charles voice. That couldn’t have been right.

“Just rest. Nothing else.” Logan had sighed. “Listen, I’m here because I’m worried. But… this is also no place for an argument.”

Charles had huffed, but he hadn’t disagreed.

It might just as well have been another dream.

Erik dreamed. Mostly of red lights and clouds of black particles, trees turning into missiles. Sleep wasn’t easy. It hadn’t been this hard in a long time. He vaguely remembered times when he’d been in the medbay, running high fevers as his body tried to keep up with the changes it had to undergo. Others had never left medbay. He had. He trusted he would leave this time, too.

When Erik finally woke for good, somebody was snoring in the chair next to his bed. It was loud enough that he suspected it had been the snores that had woken him. He turned his head and closed his eyes again. Everything hurt, a dull, pulsating pain, especially in his back and chest. His side was numb. He reached out to stop the snoring. His hand hit a leg with a rather inorganic sound.

The snoring stopped. Erik pulled his hand back.

“Wsfgl?” The sound was intelligible but it was Logan, sure enough.

“Why’re you snoring by my bedside?” Erik groaned. He’d hoped it would have been Charles and was now trying not to be angry it wasn’t. Charles was probably too busy for this. Which could only mean that Logan wasn’t.

“Because it’s the middle of the night,” Logan rumbled. There was some rustling, then he leaned over, bringing his face into Erik’s field of vision. Erik turned his head away. “How’re you feeling?”

“Pain,” Erik admitted. He remembered being kicked. He remembered that hitting a hill had felt like hitting a mountain. “I totalled my armor.”

Logan laughed, briefly. “Not just your armor. There were quite a few totalled warbots, too.”

“Did I do well?” he asked. He didn’t want to be awake. Being awake seemed to mean pain.

“More’n well.” Very gently, Logan patted his shoulder. He seemed to avoid touching quite a big part of it, though.”Should I go call a nurse? Or do you want to sleep some more? They said all you need is rest.”

Erik shook his head and regretted it. More pain. “D’you think I could get a painkiller?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” And with that, Logan was up and gone.

Erik decided that that was as good a time as any to try to get back to sleep. If he didn’t manage, at least there was a chance for the relief of more painkillers. He couldn’t keep his eyes open anyway.

Logan was talking to someone, so far away Erik didn’t understand words. Still, there were people around and… …there were none. There was nothing in the world than a feeling of dread, building up as before his eyes red lights got brighter and brighter. His fingers and toes tingled, sending up wave after wave of heavy ice to his very core, making it hard to breathe…

Erik startled upright. The pain of putting weight on his arms and shoulders was white hot, making him gasp and taking the ice away. He realized his hand felt very wet all of a sudden.

Logan was looking at him, a mug in his hand. His mouth was open, probably to say something disapproving, but his expression turned worried when he noticed Erik’s. “I thought you’d want something to drink,” he rumbled. “But I guess you could just absorb with with your hand, too.”

Erik blinked at him. He knew where he was. He knew he’d knocked against Logan and spilt half a mug of water on himself. And still, it felt not right. Not real enough. “Why does everything hurt so bad?” He leaned back, intent of just letting himself fall in the hopes some more pain would take the rest of the ice out of his chest and then realized that the upper third of the bed had been risen, allowing him to stay sitting for a moment.

“I think that has to do with you totalling your armor with your body still inside.” Logan pushed the mug into Erik’s unresisting left hand. “Nurse’ll be over in a minute. Just a quick check up. Most things can wait til morning. C’mon. Drink.”

Erik drank, first only because he had been told, but then finishing because he still felt parched. Wordlessly, Logan handed him a mostly full bottle. Erik emptied it completely before handing it back.

“Charles’ll come by after your morning checkup,” Logan told him. “He promised.”

Erik nodded. He didn’t have the energy to be irritated at the familiarity in Logan’s tone.

“They’ll still have to debrief you,” Logan went on. His gaze never left Erik’s face. “Did mine yesterday right after we came back, but of course I wasn’t there with you and…” He stopped and looked down. Erik was gripping the hand he’d put on the bed and was squeezing.

“You were there. At the end. You were,” Erik murmured. “I know you were.”

“‘Twas a good shot, yeah?” Logan was smirking. The metal of his arm made a noise as if under pressure but he didn’t make Erik stop.

“The best I’ve ever seen,” Erik lied. After all, he’d only seen the bullet hole after.

Logan looked up, over to the door of the room. Then, he whispered at Erik. “Sorry I was so late.”

“Couldn’t have done anything any sooner,” Erik disagreed. Rational thinking. Breathe through the pain. Breathe the ice away. He let go of Logan’s hand. He suddenly had remembered something. He raised his right arm, turned it a little. It didn’t hurt much more than the left. “So it was just the armor,” he sighed, elated.

Logan rubbed his artificial hand with his human one. Erik had left a slight dent. Five dents. One with each finger. “Yeah, well, at least that proves one thing.” He winked at Erik. “The tin soldier is human after all.”

“Oh, you mean yourself?” Erik huffed back, reflexive and without thinking. He’d noticed the nurse in the doorway and was afraid Logan would be leaving. He just wished he could take the words back as soon as he said them. 

Yet, Logan was laughing. “Not fair. I’m not the one sporting all colors of the rainbow on my chest.”

The nurse stopped next to the bed, glaring at Logan, which made him almost jump to his feet. “Why is there water on the bed?” She took Erik’s hand to check if the IV was still secure. “Hold still,” she ordered, replacing the soaked tape with fresh stripes. Then, she moved on to check the drip itself. “How are you feeling?”

“Everything hurts,” Erik said.

The nurse pursed her lips. “That can’t be right.”

“But it does hurt. Everything but my side.”

The nurse sighed. “I’ll tell the doc.” She slowly let the bed down again. “Sleep.” She shot Logan a look. “Let him sleep.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Erik could hear the smirk in Logan’s voice.

The nurse left them alone, grumbling about soldiers under her breath.

Erik closed his eyes. As tired as he was, he was a bit afraid of waking up before he’d even fallen asleep again. “You’re staying?”

“Until you tell me to get lost,” Logan assured him. “And… if it helps, I’ll be there to talk, too.”

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

The physical exam that awaited Erik in the morning dragged on. It was probably just because he was trying not to look forward too much to Charles’ visit. Charles was busy, Erik kept telling himself. There was always a chance he was too busy to waste time looking after him.

Logan stayed through the examination, throwing in remarks and just plain smirks, at, what Erik only later realized, were strategic moments. The doc had him take off his shirt and Logan decided that wolf-whistling at him was a good idea, which had Erik irritated enough that he forgot just how much pain every movement caused. He still felt it, but it was far less important than making Logan stop.

Sending him away, however, didn’t cross Erik’s mind once. Not even when Logan took a photo of Erik’s back with his stupidly old fashioned phone and made him look at it. “Look at all the colors. That bit looks almost like the paintjob of your armor,” Logan had said. Erik wasn’t sure after whether he should thank Logan or just punch him through the nearest wall. The color had looked like a faded version of the color of his armor, though, and Erik was pretty sure human bodies should not take on that color.

Eventually, the doc sighed. She didn’t seem pleased, but at least somewhat satisfied. Considering Erik hadn’t been told to do anything since he’d been ordered to stand still, he didn’t move when the doc spoke. “You’re lucky you were wearing armor.” The doc shook her head. “I can’t even begin to explain how lucky.” She had to stretch and stand on her tiptoes to reach, but she patted Erik lightly on the head. “Try not to catch any missiles with your back or your chest next time, you hear.”

“What about getting kicked into the backdrop?” Logan smirked.

The doc let out a longsuffering sigh. “That, too.” She shot Erik’s side a glare. “You’re so so lucky only to break a few ribs.”

“Luck’s a talent,” Erik murmured, the words of one of his training officers springing to mind. According to that particularly nasty officer, it even was his only talent. Stupid, blind luck.

“An important one,” smirked Logan, ruffling Erik’s hair so it stuck out in every direction. He’d probably decided that was ok because Erik had let the doc.

Erik shrugged, wincing a little. He shouldn’t move as much as he did. “There’s better talents.”

Logan and the doc exchanged a brief look. Then, Logan shook his head. “No. No, I think, luck’s the best talent one can have. Everything else, you can learn.”

Erik had no idea how to respond to that. Refex told him to disagree. Luck was useless, you couldn’t measure or quantify it or rely on it. But instinct, and part of his conscious mind, too, saw reason in the words. So, Erik opted for the one option he knew worked when facing superiors: Stand still, do nothing and wait for something that actually needed responding to.

He shouldn’t have spoken up in the first place.

For a moment, Logan still seemed to wait for a response, but then, realizing he wasn’t getting any, sighed.

The doc shrugged. “Well, you’re here. It was luck. If you don’t believe in that, be more careful.” For a second, she exchanged another glance with Logan, that ended with Logan shaking his head. She pursed her lips, but then just turned. “Rest up well.” With that, she left.

Erik felt like he’d missed an entire conversation.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. He had done something wrong. Something to displease Logan accidentally. He just didn’t know what.

“What for?” Logan was looking at him with some intensity. Erik had to steel himself to not look away or squirm.

Erik shrugged. It was hard to put in words what he felt bad for. “For not being perfect,” he volunteered. It was as close to the truth as he could get.

Logan’s hand flexed, fist opening and closing. Erik realized he was trying to hide the reaction from him, so he pretended he didn’t see it. “Your best is good enough for now,” Logan said gruffly. He put a hand on Erik’s shoulder. “And now back to bed with you. I don’t want to get yelled at for making you stand around needlessly.”

Erik wanted to protest he could stand just fine, that the problem really was more the lying and sitting when there was weight on his bruises, but something about Logan’s expression had him comply. It was just an excuse to let the topic go.

Silence stretched between them, only broken by the eventual sound of footsteps. Erik sat up a little straighter when he recognized them. He could have sworn Logan scoffed under his breath.

Charles’ steps slowed down just before he reached the door. The doc hadn’t closed it behind her, but it did after Charles when he waved a hand at it. His expression instantly brightened when he noticed Erik was awake. Erik smiled back at him without even thinking about it.

“Erik, you’re awake,” Charles beamed. Erik might have imagined it, but Charles did walk a little faster again. He stopped on the side of Erik’s bed opposite to Logan. It seemed deliberate. “And you’re still here, too, Logan.” His tone had gone a little frosty.

“Nobody’s told me to leave, yet,” Logan said. Erik didn’t want to turn to see his expression, but he sounded like he was restraining some anger.

“Well, then I’ll tell you to go find something useful to do instead of bothering Erik.” Charles made a shooing motion. Then, he turned his full attention to Erik, his expression softening. He reached out to smoothe Erik’s hair down, with much greater care than necessary. A happy shudder went down Erik’s spine. “How’re you feeling, Erik?”

“Better,” Erik said truthfully. “It doesn’t hurt as bad as last night anymore.”

Charles let out a breath. “Then I’m glad. I was worried about you, silly boy.”

“I’ll heal,” Erik promised. Charles hadn’t stopped petting him yet so he leaned into the touch. “I’m sorry about my armor.” He bit his lip. “And the rifle.”

“Nothing we can’t fix,” Charles ensured him. “It’s easier replaced than you. A lot easier. So, if breaking an armor keeps you safe, you can break one or two each year.”

“Hey, how come I get yelled at for breaking my arm then?” Logan chuckled. Erik had almost forgotten about him.

“You” Charles’ voice had metaphorical icicles hanging from it “Break about an arm a month.” He glared over Erik’s shoulder. “Is that a dent in your hand? We checked you yesterday, how did you break it in that time?” Charles’ hand dropped from Erik’s head so he could grab Logan’s arm and pull it toward him for closer inspection. He let go with a sigh. “I’m not saying this enough, I should fire you.”

Logan pulled his hand back. From the corner of his eye, Erik could see him rub the wrist with his other hand. Erik opened his mouth. It wasn’t Logan’s fault. But he lost what he’d wanted to say when he looked in Charles’ eyes. He couldn’t tell him about the nightmares he had whether sleeping or not. They were a sign of failing.

But lying was not an option, either.

Before Erik could reach a decision, Logan said, “I banged my hand in my sleep. What’re those beds made from, anyway?”

Charles took a deep breath, making his nostrils flare a little. “Something softer than your arm.”

Logan shrugged. “Then it must’ve happened some other time.” There was definitely a smirk in his voice.

“Erik?” Charles said sweetly. “You don’t happen to know anything? Seeing how he just wouldn’t leave.”

Erik swallowed. He couldn’t lie. Especially not to Charles of all people. “I broke it,” he admitted, but Logan interjected before he could go on, “I touched his shoulder and he removed my hand. That’s all.”

Charles looked at Erik’s shoulder, then at Logan, then back at Erik. He nodded. “Next time, Erik, you have my permission to punch him. In the face if you want to.” He smoothed a hand against Erik’s cheek. “You don’t have to be nice to him.”

Erik’s expression froze at the thought of punching Logan. There was a chance he could kill him if he wasn’t very, very careful about it.

“It’s all good,” Charles cooed. “You did nothing wrong.”

Erik swallowed and nodded. Logan had lied for him. It didn’t make any sense.

“How does your head feel?” Charles asked, rubbing his thumb over Erik’s cheekbone. “Do you remember your fight with the Khopesh?”

Erik nodded. “All of it.” He paused. “Especially the missiles and its leg.”

“Would you be up for debriefing later, Erik? For me?” Charles smiled softly. “We have, of course, the recordings of your helmet camera, but I’d like to hear it from you, too. The AI was, to your luck, also not damaged. It might have gone badly, you know? If it hadn’t been there to assist you. Or…” Charles shook his head to get rid of the sudden far away look in his eyes. “Maybe we need to redesign parts of your armor, but again, I want to hear from you.”

Erik swallowed.

“It’s routine, Erik,” Charles reminded him.

Erik nodded. “I shouldn’t have run up to it, though,” he murmured. “I could have destroyed the cover over its core through other means.”

Charles shrugged. “It was faster. Risky, too, but it worked out.” He sighed. “We have barely started analyzing all the new data both of you brought back. You did well for fighting something we’ve never seen before. And…” He looked at Logan for a second. “Do you share Logan’s opinion that it was reloading more missiles by absorbing trees?” Something in Charles’ expression made it clear that he was thinking Logan was pulling his leg.

“I don’t know.” Erik closed his eyes. He forced himself to keep on breathing normally while remembering details. “But it was sucking in particles while trees vanished.”

Charles frowned. Yet, he nodded. “Alright.”

“Charles? Can I ask a question?” Erik opened his eyes again. Everything was a little better with Charles caressing his cheek, with Charles’ smiling at him.

“Of course.”

“That was just a medium sized bot, wasn’t it?” Logan had said something about a 200 meter long robot. And as big as the Khopesh had been, it hadn’t been even twenty meters long. Something in Erik’s mind refused to call it small, though.

Charles nodded. “As far as we’ve learned, yes.” He pulled a face. “You were lucky, probably, that they sent the combat unit. Some of the abilities of the smaller ones we’re currently evaluating might have proven a problem. We can only guess why they didn’t send out more than one, too. Maybe, it was the only one available.” He shrugged. “But that’s all speculation. At least right now.”

“You could help us with an airstrike next time,” Logan joked. “That’d be good.”

“And expensive, very conspicuous and probably useless.” Charles sighed. “You’re not the only one who thinks that big bots beg for airstrikes. That’s why they come equipped with AA weaponry.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. He looked tired all of a sudden. “We don’t know enough yet. Take this rest to recover.” He bit his lips. “Both of you. And be ready. Something big’s coming up.  _ My  _ superiors are pissed at FAS. It’s getting political fast. So, if they actually built any more of the Chariot line…” Charles sighed. “Be ready. Please.”

Logan had to have mouthed something, because Charles was shaking his head at him. He sighed. “I’m sorry I don’t have more time for you right now, Erik.”

Erik did his best not to show any disappointment that Charles was leaving already, but something had to have slipped through. Charles leaned in to kiss his cheek, changing his mind at the last second and kissing him on the lips instead. “I’m really sorry. I’ll be back tonight. If you’d like I could keep you company during dinner.”

Erik could only nod. He felt flushed, his throat dry. Charles had never kissed him in front of anyone.

“Logan? I won’t tell you again that you can’t stay, but I want a word with you.” Charles stood up, fixing his suit. “Now!” He ran his hand through Erik’s hair one last time. “Until dinner.”

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

Charles led Logan into an empty room just around the corner from the medbay and locked the door after them. Logan had his arms crossed in front of his chest and was glaring daggers at Charles. He refused to be the one starting it this time.

Why the hell had he to go kiss that boy for? As if Logan hadn’t known already what was going on. It stung, still, but mostly it had been expected. What hadn’t been was the quick glance Erik had shot him when he’d followed Charles. Confused, flustered, Logan guessed. A tiny bit afraid, even though Logan couldn’t possibly guess of what. Maybe that liking Charles was making him “not perfect”. Whatever that was about.

Logan gripped his upper arm tighter.

“Logan.” Charles sighed deeply. “I can’t even decide where to begin right now.”

Logan shrugged, without unfolding his arms. “You could thank me for watching over the boy.”

“He has a name, Logan.” Charles voice was already getting closer to a hiss.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, S one hundred and something.” Logan rolled his eyes. “Is Erik even his actual name or is that just one you picked because you liked the sound of it more? Your spell to turn Pinocchio into a real boy?”

For a second, Logan was sure Charles would slap him. But instead, Charles closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He relaxed visibly before he opened his eyes again. “Stop provoking me. Please. I don’t have the energy to fight right now. I’ve been in meetings non stop since you sent those plans over. My bosses, people doing risk analysis, our so called allies… everyone wants to make sure I’m not lying, I did not just make it up. Some people called the head of FAS, even! I’m surprised nobody name dropped me to them yet. And I only assume nobody did because this base still stands.” He took another deep breath. “They’re building a Horus. It’s three quarters done. Your mission… might, just might… have bought the time needed to do away with it before it can do damage. You know who called me and asked for the schematics to review?”

Logan shrugged. “The president?”

“Hah! Guess higher.” Charles threw his arms up. “Fucking Dr Sobek.”

“The Nobel laureate?”

“Yes! Her! This whole affair stinks to high heavens.” Charles leaned against the door. “I don’t have the time or energy to worry about other things now. So…” He pushed his hair out of his face. “Thanks for worrying about Erik for me. I mean it.”

“If you’re asked…” Logan let his arms sink. “You’ll deploy him against the Horus, right?”

Charles nodded. “The Scarabs can hack every single machine we have. So no bots. Tanks aren’t fast enough to not get overrun. We can’t even use drones from the sounds of it. And fucking FAS thought that foregoing any kind of emergency stop was a god damn bright idea. They can’t even prove they have full control over the Horus AI. What if they lose that? Do you remember the storms when the AI that reconstructed the climate went rogue? This would be worse. These are  _ meant  _ to kill.”

“The Khopesh ate trees,” Logan murmured. The ragged stumps he’d sped past on the vert on his way to a good sniper position were still stuck in his mind.

“They can replicate,” Charles sighed.

“Bloody nano machine magic if you ask me,” Logan rumbled.

“Yes.” Charles held out his hand. “If I promise to forget about it as soon as we leave this room, will you not lie to me when I ask you what really happened to your hand? I counted five dents, five finger prints, more or less. That doesn’t happen when brushing somebody off. Not like this.”

Logan had the decency to look sheepish. “He squeezed my hand a bit too tight.”

“Why?” Charles sounded just weary, tired.

“Pain.” Logan shook his head. “Sorry. But in this case, I think I choose my loyalty to him over you. And… don’t ask him. Unless you want to see him panic some more. You did notice it, too, didn’t you?”

“That he considered lying to me for a second?” The corner of Charles’ mouth twitched. “Yes. Nice save, by the way, Logan.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Just tell me that he’ll not hesitate when I send him out again.”

Logan shook his head. “He won’t. Not a second.”

 

⥁⥁⥁

 

Logan found Erik in a thoughtful mood when he returned, so he just took up his post on the chair again and waited. Logan was good at waiting. He could wait all day if he needed to. Especially right now, when he had so much to think about himself.

Some of the things Charles had said were worrying.

Politicians didn’t get involved with companies these days. Hah, half of them were stand-ins for companies, not elected as a human being but a proxy for corporate interest. Whoever’s bloody stupid idea that’d been.

And, after one too many fallouts in the aftermath of climate change, you didn’t go around sharing much military information with other countries, either.

With the rest, Logan couldn’t even begin to start. He didn’t really want to think about how bad things must be if Charles went to curse over a call from a woman whose praise he could sing for hours on end when asked on a good day. Sure, from what Logan had heard directly from Charles himself they didn’t much like each other personally. They’d met at conferences. But she was the one scientist Charles sometimes mentioned when he felt like idle small talk.

At least, Charles didn’t think they were headed for an all out war against FAS. Not yet.

“Logan?” Erik’s voice was soft, as if he didn’t want to actually be heard.

Logan raised his head. “Mh?”

He noticed Erik had grabbed his blanket so hard his knuckles turned white. “Are you and Charles friends?”

“No.” Logan didn’t even think about this response. They definitely were a lot of complicated things, but friends wasn’t one of it.

The answer seemed to demand some thinking over, because it took Erik a while to find his next question. “He’s not your enemy, is he?”

Logan shook his head, laughing a little. “I wished, but no. We just disagree on some principles.”

“Then…” Erik blinked. “Lovers?”

Logan bit his lip. “Not… well. Were but that was” Last week before I realized who you are as a person “a long time ago.”

“Oh.” And that, apparently, was it for Erik. He relaxed.

“Listen.” Logan had remembered the look on Erik’s face after Charles had kissed him and felt like this was needed. “I don’t blame you for liking him. Hell, I’m glad you have someone. Even if it’s Charles. I’m not going to fight you or anything about him.” He waved his hand. “I’m not interested anymore. ‘s all.”

Erik shrugged. “I’m not so stupid to think Charles never had lovers before me.” It was a low murmur, directed at the ceiling, not Logan. He had a point there, or even a gap the size of twenty-four years.

“Yeah, but.” Logan waved his hand. “Meeting your lover’s ex is always shite, for everyone.”

Erik nodded.

“Don’t worry about me just because of Charles.” Logan sighed. “I don’t think differently of you for it. Or him, for that matter.”

Again, Erik nodded.

Logan sighed. “I didn’t tell him how exactly you dented my hand, by the way. But he asked again.”

Erik’s head shot up. What little color there had been in his face drained. “What?”

“I told him you did it because you were in pain. And I’d rather you’d stick to that.” Logan shrugged. “I outrank you. Would an order make it easier?”

Erik shrugged. “I’m not lying to Charles,” he said, more uncertain than defiant.

“No. Of course not. You were in pain. It’s not a lie.”

“Yeah, but.” Erik pressed his lips together. “It wasn’t about the pain.”

Logan reached out, waiting until Erik had had the chance to avoid his hand, before undoing all Charles had done to smoothen Erik’s hair. “It’s still pain. Just not the one Charles’ll be thinking of.” He smoothed the hair back. “Which part is it for you, kiddo?”

“The laser heating up,” Erik said, his voice hollow.

“For me, it was the sunset shining through buildings for the longest time.” Logan took a deep breath. “Still can’t stand it, but it doesn’t freeze me at the spot anymore.” He rolled the shoulder of his mechanical arm. “The explosion was bad, too. I’m still dreaming of that, you know? I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Or that my ears’ll ever stop ringing.”

Some deep understanding dawned behind the shadow clouding Erik’s eyes, Logan noticed. “And you still go on.” The reverence with which the words were spoken felt like glass shards in Logan’s chest. “I can still hear the noise it made when the trees were sucked into it. Well, particles of them, anyway.”

Logan shuddered. “I saw the stumps. That… no machine should do that. No warbot should ever be allowed to use nature to refuel.”

Erik closed his eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths. “That bullet hole was the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

Logan pressed his lips together. He couldn’t entirely help the smirk, though.

“What?” Erik asked.

“Nothing.” Logan shook his head. “Not the place for it.”

Erik frowned. “What?” he repeated.

“You don’t want me to say it, trust me, kiddo.” Logan shook his head again, grinning.

“I trust you,” Erik said slowly. “But I still want to hear it now.”

“Oh, kiddo,” Logan sighed. “Fine. Was it a better sight than Charles naked?”

Erik immediately went beet-red, much to Logan’s amusement.

“You wanted to hear what I was thinking,” Logan laughed.

Erik opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. “Charles allowed me to punch you,” was what finally got out.

Logan shrugged. “You wouldn’t.”

“I want to.”

“Still, you wouldn’t.”

The color from Erik’s face was only very slowly fading back to somewhat normal. He raised a hand, then gently nudged Logan’s shoulder. “I’m starting to understand why Charles doesn’t like you.”

“Oh, Charles likes me,” Logan smirked. “I’m just doing my best that he doesn’t actually like me too much.”

Erik shook his head. “Then what’s wrong with me that I think you’re doing this right now to be nice?”

Logan laughed.


	5. Remember The Reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soso sorry this took almost a month.  
> I got stuck and then sick and Dragon Age 2 just happened to me. //long sigh and shrug// 
> 
> Anyway. Remember I'm not a nice author. I can count (usually) and I do choose which synonym to use deliberately in most cases. This is the beginning of the end.
> 
> Chapter title is taken from Miracle of Sounds "Friends to Foes" Just thought I'd start mentioning where the titles come from ;) Yes, the Ch 4 and the fic title are also lines from Halo fansongs.

Charles kept his eyes closed, his breaths deep and even, and listened. He didn’t want Erik to realized he’d noticed, not when Erik was trying so hard to hide it. Not when even Logan had been in on keeping it from him. 

For the past little while, maybe five minutes, maybe an hour, Erik had been trying to fall asleep, only to, whenever Charles thought he’d finally managed it, stiffen, miss a breath and then being very obviously wide awake again. Erik had never learned how to fake sleeping properly. Charles had to try very hard not to touch him, to offer soothing words, to tell him he didn’t have to sleep right now. But, if years and years of experience with Logan were good for anything, then it was knowing that he could always make it worse instead of better.

He could, at least in some way, see why Erik didn’t want him to know. During the project, they hadn’t been kind to anyone who’d shown signs of weakness. Hadn’t needed to be. Finding perfect candidates to be the perfect soldiers in modern, robotized wars was more important than weeding them only for their physical abilities.

Still, part of him wished he could at least ask Erik, too, if he was talking about it to Logan. Logan had hinted at it, which put Charles’ mind more to ease than what else Logan could say to Erik worried him.

Erik’s breath finally evened out for good. He relaxed, but only ever so slightly. Charles brushed a hand through his hair. He was just glad Erik was sleeping. Logan hadn’t been after the explosion, not for months without chemical help. Charles hoped that this meant he was worrying over something that wasn’t as bad as he feared.

The past three weeks had been hectic and frustrating for Charles. He had been between meetings with his own staff and conferences with his equals and superiors for days in a row, having to discuss the implications of what Logan had brought back, having to discuss changes in Erik’s armor and weapons loadout.

For a couple of days, his superiors had been convinced they could deal with the Horus that had already been build with their own troops, which hadn’t had human soldiers or pilots in twenty years. One drone had made it back, badly damaged and with no useable data. That had been last week. FAS had admitted they’d lost control of the Horus’ AI two days ago. Heavens only knew if they’d ever had it to begin with.

They hadn’t listened to him when he’d said attacking the new FAS line of machines by conventional means was bloody stupid and counterproductive in the best of cases. They hadn’t listened and screwed up. And now, now when they were out of ideas, with only a handful of capable pilots for museum grade plans still left in the air force, relicts from 20, 30 years ago, with much less human personnel than robot soldiers and almost no mechanical weapons. Every AI could be hacked. The US army was learning a quick, hard lesson at the moment, because they’d refused to listen for decades.

“Your Spartan will be able to fix this, right?” General Herres had asked in private after the conference over the deployment order. The order to send Erik against the Horus, with no robotic backup, like Charles had suggested from the start. The only difference it made now was the number of robots against him. Charles was convinced most of the US military forces had been overwritten, not destroyed, even though the board clearly hadn’t believed him.

Charles had swallowed the angry response at the tip of his tongue. In the three years since Herres had taken office, he’d threatened to shut down funding for any technology he deemed outdated regularly. The only reason why they even had a functional Spartan now was because Charles had fought back, backing his stance up with data and a number of AI projects on the side. That most of the weapons developed to be used by human super soldiers could also be mounted on robots had only been a boon, in Charles’ eyes.

“He will not fail. He was made for this,” Charles had ensured Herres. It was the truth. The whole project had always been meant as a weapon against AIs better than ordinary humans in every respect, better than the AIs humans could control.

We will never again be helpless in a fight against an AI out of control, had been the slogan that’d drawn Charles in, all those years back when he’d barely graduated. The project had been controversial even back then, when all military had already been phasing out human soldiers and pilots. That was, even without having it public knowledge where they’d gotten their recruits from or how old they were. Nowadays, most generals had seen it as a leftover oddity without use, something that had been funded for too long a period in a different time.

Charles pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. 

He hated that they were wrong, more than anyone. He hated that he’d even been right about the details, that the uncontrollable AI would be part of military, not civilian, technology the next time. Civilian AIs, for the most part, got at least some form of conscience programmed in. For military usage, conscience, empathy, and all other emotions were close to mortal design flaws.

Charles was slowly realizing that he would not find any rest, even though it had been him that had asked Erik for an early night, not the other way around. He didn’t want to get up, partly because he didn’t want to risk waking Erik. And partly because he actually had missed his presence while he’d been recovering in the medbay, while Charles had been too busy to make more room in his schedule for more than an hour.

Charles took the holopad from his nightstand in the hopes of getting back to work from bed. He had a couple of mails, but nothing that needed more attention than a quick perusal. From what he’d heard from weapons tech and the armor development team, they were good to go with the rebuilding and making the changes they’d decided on for the next deployment. Medbay kept telling him that Erik would need a final checkup before they’d give any judgement, but that was scheduled for the next morning.

Charles glanced at his personal messages from the corner of his eyes. There was one, having come in just minutes ago.

Logan…

Charles never knew whether or not he actually wanted to deal with him at any given time. But at the same time, he knew very well that they both didn’t have any other friends, nobody else to talk to. It had just gotten stuck as it was, their relationship, over the years. Not even Logan’s ethics and morals had been able to change a thing about it.

Against better judgement, as always, Charles opened the message. At the very least, it wasn’t the usual proposition. It was Logan asking whether or not Erik was asleep instead. Charles frowned.

«Are you asking because you feel like knowing or because you want something from me?» Charles wrote back. He was pretty confident that chiding Logan not to try and play dad would fall on deaf ears. Or rather blind eyes, considering Logan would be reading, not listening. Logan had been hovering around Erik like a mother hen for the past three weeks. To everyone’s surprise, Erik was mostly tolerating him. Even to Charles, his annoyance had only looked to be minimal.

«Wanted to find out if you let him sleep» was Logan’s response.

«He’s sleeping just fine.» Charles drummed his fingers at the side of the holopad and added, «He was gone the moment he hit the mattress. What did you do all day that he’s this exhausted?» Logan definitely didn’t need to know everything.

«I put him through his paces all day» Logan replied. Instinctively, Charles reached out to put a hand on Erik’s shoulder. «Took him to the training center and taught him something I’d like to call “stop standing in the way of your sniper if you don’t want to die”» Logan added before Charles had found the right words to snap at him.

Charles shook his head. Unobserved as he was, he allowed himself a smile. Apparently, there was some sense in allowing the Mother Hen to continue. «Do you think he internalized it by now?» Charles asked.

«What are you getting at?» Even via text, Logan sounded suspicious.

«I can’t imagine you having a desire to see one of the Horus up close, but what about seeing one from far off?» Charles suggested. It was a plan that would never get any approval should he ask for it. But then again, he could just not ask anyone who outranked him.

«Dunno if I like where this is going, Charles.»

Charles nodded to himself. It was risky, after all. «I hope you’re on your work holopad and not that godawful phone» He attached a encrypted file to the message. «You can get back to me about this in the morning. This is off the record, you understand?»

«Worried?» Logan’s reply had taken a good while. Charles had in the meantime opened some work, bored of waiting. He assumed Logan had to have done the same.

«Always» Charles admitted. «Worried was the first emotion I ever associated with either of you.»

⥁⥁⥁

Erik tried not to fidget while he watched the mission briefing on his way to deployment. He’d be dropped off about three miles from where they suspected his target was located. He was advised to expect all three of the new types of FAS machines, with the largest, the heaviest, as his main target. But in addition to an unknown number of FAS machines of the two smaller sizes, he’d also likely face US military robots, their AI overwritten by the FAS machines.

They’d given him new guns for this trip. The unfamiliar weight in his hands made him a little uneasy. He wasn’t used to have to carry much ammunition, either, using mostly energy weapons that could be recharged by the reactor of his armor. This time, however, with the firepower he’d likely need and no chance for remote aid, there was not much of a choice.

A little light on his helmet display warned him of the approaching drop off. He got to his feet, balancing carefully to the back of the vert. Having the vert land and take off again would take too much time, Charles had said. It wasn’t the first time Erik had done this. He’d drop like a stone, he knew, that was, until the jetpacks ignited and slowed his fall. Even so, he was always thankful for his armor absorbing most of the shock of landing.

This time was no different. He stepped off the vert at the marked coordinates. The AI in his armor took over, calibrating the thrust of the jetpacks. He reached the slightly inclining ground with his center of mass just a bit too far ahead to land on his feet, rolling once instead, before he came to a stand.

For a minute, he merely observed.

It was eery. Nothing moved. There was no grass that could move in the wind, nor trees, nor any other kind of plant anywhere in sight. He could hear no noise, make out no animal, not even birds or insects. All he could see was naked stone and upturned, scorched earth. He shuddered.

_ It had consumed trees to refuel… _

If he concentrated, he could see movement in the distance. A glint of metal here and there. Too small for Khopesh, though. He clutched his new rifle. Getting over without drawing attention to himself wouldn’t be easy. There wasn’t much cover, not with all foliage stripped, all woods that had been here gone. A handful of rocks here and there. The lone wreckage of an US military robot. A lot of open ground in between.

_ Focus _ .

Erik skidded down the slope. The ground under his feet was uneven, stones having been dragged to the surface as whatever plants had grown here had disappeared. Here and there, he saw holes and dents that looked like tracks. The AI of his armor informed him that most matched the blueprints of the FAS Scarab, insect-like machines. The smallest of the production line.

As he drew closer to the wreckage, he noticed more and more tracks. There were craters, too. Blackened soil. Scraps of metal. All telling signs of a fight. But, even when he found another half buried robot in the colors of the US army, even when he found the ripped off stinger of a Scarab a way off, still stuck in a rock in the ground, there just weren’t enough. They’d sent twenty bots. He had two wrecks.

Which meant that Charles’ had been right about the Scarabs. Not that Erik had doubted him. If Charles said the Scarabs were able to overwrite any machine, they could. Erik was prepared for that. But he’d expected to find at least one destroyed Scarab. They’d been against twenty state of the art robots.

Erik made sure his new rifle was set to the right ammo type and moved on. Meeting a group of Scarabs would be unpleasant, at the very least. He could just hope he’d get enough of them before they got any close.

The landscape was changing as he walked on toward his target area. Slowly, the wide field became narrower, slopes rising left and right. The ground was getting hilly, too. He crossed a small stream at one point. He’d expected the water to be clear, picked clean of all leaves, broken twigs and animals. It had been, and yet there was a layer of oil on top, shining in the sunlight. Erik decided to change course a little. There had to be a reason for the oil and the stream was coming from vaguely the right direction anyway.

He found the source of the oil when the stream took a turn into a side valley, if the dead end between two hills could even be called that. A Scarab had collapsed, directly above the stream. A couple of meters away, buried under a pile of rocks, was the battered wreck of an US military bot. Erik sighed. He’d hoped he could be quick about the mission. That it was the Horus leaking oil, not just an almost destroyed Scarab.

One of the Scarab’s legs twitched. Erik watched it struggle upright, aiming his rifle at it. He wouldn’t need more than his energy rifle for it. It was barely functional, no need to waste physical ammo on it. It lacked its stinger, electricity leaping between contacts, sparks flying between ripped cables. Some of its legs were malfunctioning, too. The shots he fired at where he knew the processor core was felt like putting it out of its misery.

The Scarab broke down again, the singular red spot of light on its core dimming until it faded away completely. It was now leaking even more oil into the stream.

When he turned around to leave the valley, he saw movement in the distance again. This time, however, it was coming closer. He looked around. There was more than just the one or more robots directly ahead of him. There were also some coming from most other directions, all heading directly toward him.

Erik made sure his rifle was charged up again. He probably shouldn’t fight them from a distance, however tempting it was. Still, picking a few off before they could get close would make it easier. He looked around. It wasn’t a bad spot for a fight. Sure, the stream could get into his way, but the ground was moderately even and there weren’t all that many huge stones lying around. If he played his cards right, he could even use the wrecks and hills for cover.

He was no sniper and he knew it. Not with the gear he had been given. Not from the position he’d be fighting in. He missed the first shot he aimed at the closest Scarab, had expected to. It changed course after the shot, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to make Erik feel like he was doing something, that he wasn’t just waiting for the fight, that he wasn’t waiting to be overrun by ten enemies.

The other machines were still too far to be hit or hit him. His AI tagged them for him, kept track of their distance in his peripheral vision.

He ran for the closest Scarab. That had to confuse its programming, it changed course again, heading for him straight on. The distance was closing so fast now, each leap, each stride, bringing them closer together. 

Erik aimed while he was still running. 

Scarabs had no viable ranged weapon against him. Nothing they had would get through his shields, not even all ten of them at once. They relied on proximity and the occasional rock to throw.

The red light at its center was as good as any target in training when he’d been so much younger and it had been a game still.

His finger twitched around the trigger, magazin emptying about half. The Scarab’s core exploded in sparks. He was still running, reaching it as it collapsed and jumping over it to slow himself down, to allow him to switch course.

From the distances his AI estimated, he still had time to take out one more, maybe two before the whole swarm would be there. He landed, pushing himself off the ground to the side almost immediately, running to the nearest Scarab.

Scarabs. They came in a pair. He didn’t care much. He didn’t care that it was all training, and the body he’d been given, and his armor driving him forward, that no other human left alive could just charge without their body protesting the abuse like his did. His rifle was already recharging.

He slid past the first, dodging its stinger, hitting it on the underside with little to no effect. He hadn’t meant it to have an effect. He’d meant to get to the other one, to grab its body and pull himself up, firing at close distance, the glass cover of its camera eye splintering before the lights went out, the core irreparably damaged.

The first Scarab tried once more with its stinger, Erik dodging it just barely this time. It had misjudged, however, the stinger now buried in the wreck of its brethren. The moment of immobility enough for Erik to destroy it, as well, with another quick salve.

He looked up and around, making sure he hadn’t overestimated the time he had to play around. The remaining six Scarabs had stopped, grouping up in the distance. Their programming had to run double time now to try and figure out how to deal with a new enemy. Charles had said they didn’t come with enough of an AI to adapt quickly to him, but still had warned him not to be careless. They didn’t need to be inventive. And if they had, there was still a chance that the main AI of the swarm, the AI of the Horus, would supply a strategy.

Erik had no intention to find out whether or not Charles’ theory was right.

Fighting them on an open field was stupid. He knew that. It didn’t stop him. It didn’t even make him hesitate to charge. All it did was make him switch weapons while he was running, clicking the rifle he’d used in the holster on his back, removing his new weapon from his back a moment later. Eyes fixed ahead, eyes fixed at the huddled group of machines. Always on the enemy.

They scattered apart as he was getting close. Two rammed their stingers in the ground, lifting massive boulders to hurl at him. A jump. A jetpack thrust. The ground shook as the boulders landed, still shook the few seconds later when Erik did. One Scarab came up behind him, but he swung around, gun in hand.

He didn’t have to aim much. The blast from the shotgun went through armor plating at range this close. It ripped a hole through the Scarab’s body. Erik didn’t wait, just pumped the gun once, letting it replace the shells.

The Scarab was beside him from one moment to the next. The stinger scraped the side of Erik’s helmet. A boulder hitting the ground took him off balance. His shot missed, tearing through a leg, the side, not enough to take the Scarab out.

He tried again. The next shot hit.

A shadow passed over him. Something hit him in the back, knocking him to the ground. One machine leg on each, his shoulders were pinned down. It took a lot of unthinking effort not to let go of his shotgun. He just hoped his rifle was still intact. He’d need that. 

And then. Something connected with the back of his neck. The world went dark. The air was gone. Erik swallowed. He couldn’t feel anything anymore, just the armor on his skin. He blinked. Still no air.

With a flicker, his armor came back to life. Vital systems first, air, helmet display. Those that functioned without his AI. A warning was flashing before his eyes, two words, again and again and again. VIRUS DETECTED. Erik moved his fingers and found that he could. He rolled his left shoulder, upsetting the weight on him just enough to get his hand around the barrel of his gun. He didn’t aim. He couldn’t aim overhead, not even with all armor systems running at normal. Definitely not now when his AI was busy staying alive, staying whole.

He pulled the trigger.

The weight on his back felt almost unbearable for a moment, bruising, crushing.

SHIELD ONLINE

The pressure eased. Erik let go of his gun for a second, his hands finding the stinger at the back of his neck. Still connected to his AIport, to the port linking his armor, its AI, with him, with his body, his nervous system. He felt sick.

The metal ripped between his hands when he pulled. He janked the stump of the stinger from his neck as he stood back up, throwing it away as far as he could. He could see most systems of his armor coming back, more and more each moment.

The remaining three Scarabs stood there, scanning him. As if they didn’t know what to do.

Erik knew what to do. It was simple, really. They could jump. They wanted to get close. He picked his shotgun up. But so could he. So did he.

Click. Boom. Jump. Click. Boom. Fist connecting with metal. Rock hitting his shield. Click. Boom. Dodge the sparks. His knee shattering an armor plate, brought against it with force. Click. No time to reload. Rip off the stinger. Get on the back. Grab, rip, throw. Punch down, down, again, ignore the warnings. Red fading to black.

He wasn’t exactly sure how he managed to disable the Scarabs. He found himself in the middle of the wrecks, calmly reloading his shotgun. Then, just as calm, he made sure that his primary rifle was intact. One of the batteries seemed a bit damaged, not making it unstable yet. He didn’t want to risk it. Better less capacity than no rifle at all. He removed the battery. It was meant to be removed, to be replaced quickly. He just tossed it aside like the stump of the stinger before.

His neck hurt, even after the medical subroutine was back and pumping pain killers and whatever else into his body. His lungs ached. At the leftmost corner of his vision, the armor showed diagnostics of its systems Erik couldn’t care about.

Onward.

He was fine.

⥁⥁⥁

The ground had gone darker the closer he got to his target area. It wasn’t the earth, it wasn’t the rock. It was like rot, infesting the ground, draining everything that was left from it, every bit of life. The air was hazardous at best. Unbreathable. Not even the filters could do anything about it. He had enough oxygen with him for two, three hours of exertion, the AI warned.

It was still running diagnostics.

Erik had to wonder if AIs could worry. If his AI was capable of worry. He would have worried, had he allowed himself to think.

The mountains around him were towering now. Sheer cliffs left and right, leaving only two paths, ahead and back. There was no turning back for him. Just a little further, the ground dropped, or ended. Maybe the world ended, even, somewhere up ahead.

It’d end in black.

Erik reached the edge of the drop. He took a moment to pause, to breathe. To calm down. His breath was still ragged. He hadn’t stopped long enough after the encounter with the Scarabs, adrenalin pushing him to move. Now, he stood by one of the cliffs, looking down into a cauldron, made of rock and dirt and black, so much black.

Even the Khopesh down at the bottom were black. Red lights, pulsing, scanning, the only color.

The Horus wasn’t black. Even if it had been, it had been impossible to hide. It was almost as big as a hill. Two hundred meters long, Logan had said. It looked bigger, silver metal gleaming in the sun. It was drilling at the mountain, its four tentacles wrapped around the side. Its body stretched out, filling the valley beneath. It had a number of cores, all able to sustain it on their own. All needed to be destroyed, to make sure it wasn’t going to reproduce, that it wasn’t going to raise an army, a real swarm. To make sure the world wouldn’t end in black. It was like a titan, from movies or stories Erik only dimly remembered from the time before. From when he had been a child, the time he did not think about.

The noise of it carried up to where Erik was watching.

The Khopesh were patrolling. He could track their routes easily. He wouldn’t be able to dodge them. They’d spot him, probably the moment he stepped away from the cliff. They were scanning, for him, for the one that had caused the Scarabs to die, had killed them. 

He counted six of the machines. Six was a lot. The half finished one at the side of the Horus didn’t count. He wished he had a bigger gun. He was lucky enough, he could have disabled two or even three of them from his vantage. Probably. But he only had the two he had. A shotgun, useless against machines that wouldn’t let him come close, not after what he’d done to the Scarabs, not when they didn’t need to.

And his rifle. He flicked the switch, checked the physical ammo. All in order. He didn’t have to get close either. One shot each. Just enough. This time, he could handle them.

The world wouldn’t end in red nor black. Not for him, not for anyone.

He could handle them.

It was that moment his AI chose to alert him of the finished scans and maintenance. All in order. All well. Shield charged. Reactor running. Jetpacks still there. Enough air to fight. No virus.

I’m alright, it’s going to be fine.

Erik wasn’t sure if it was his own thought or the AI’s voice. It was true either way. He could handle all of this.

⥁⥁⥁

Why had the mountains to be so impossibly steep? It was almost like they were meant to keep people from climbing them, to keep people from finding vantage points from which they could be useful. Logan cursed. The mountains, his body, himself. He wished, probably for the first time in his life, that he’d lost both arms, only for the benefit of actually having two robotic limbs pulling him up instead of just one.

Of course he’d agreed on Charles harebrained plan. He was worried too. Had every right to, as it had turned out. He’d seen Erik fight the Scarabs, even if he’d been a long way off. The shots and crashes he’d heard having left him too worried not to stop and watch through the sight of his rifle. There was no way he’d let him fight alone again. Not today.

He hauled himself up over the edge of a narrow outcrop. The ground there was flat, just enough space for him to lie down. He looked down. About twenty, maybe fifty meters below, he’d parked his buggy. A real antique, borrowed from an army museum so early that morning it had still been last night. Bringing a vert? Impossible, not with Scarabs around. Picking a vehicle older than Logan himself? Less so.

He unslung the rifle he’d carried up. Took up station with well practiced movements. The valley stretched below, ahead. He had lost Erik at some point. It didn’t matter. It mattered more that he could see the machines. The seven Khopesh. The Horus.

After this, it was just a matter of waiting.

_ Ready when you are, Erik, _ he thought. He wished he could have said it.


	6. Ex Machina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end, part two.

“I can handle this,” Erik muttered under his breath. His fingers found another edge in the rock and he pulled himself further up. “It’s going to be alright.” Even to him it sounded like curses. Muttering to himself was a bad habit, he knew. He also knew he’d picked it up from Charles, that he should especially not do it when he did, when he was stressed and in need to concentrate. He pushed himself further up with both his feet, only one hand on the rock wall for a second before his other found a grip, about a meter further up.

For a moment, he paused, pressing himself against the rock. Too much quick movements, and even bots would be able to spot him.

What did he have to be this stupid and forgetful for anyway? He forced himself not to sigh, breath too precious to waste. He’d known they’d lost a number of bots to the Scarabs he’d taken out. He hadn’t met them on his way to the kettle, which was just his luck. He’d have been entirely unprepared. Not that he was much better off now, just barely having had the brains to go in the only direction left to him when stuck between the hacked bots approaching and the Khopesh protecting the Horus. Up.

The plan of how to deal with them had formed as he climbed, as swiftly as he could and dared. They’d have to pass through below him, the bottleneck of the cliffs allowing no other course. All he had to do was get high enough.

There was what looked like a narrow edge just above. Erik hoped it would be enough for him to stand on. Under his foot, a pebble got loose and fell, bouncing off the wall and taking other loose rocks with it. The entire rock felt unstable, with plants and biomatter gone from it. He tried not to think about it. One more push, pull, hanging in the air for a moment and he was at the edge, pulling himself up on it, catching his breath when he was finally standing instead of hanging from his arms.

He glanced down. There was barely any time left for him to prepare. Standing on the edge was awkward, too, the rifles in the holsters on his back preventing him from pressing himself against the wall. He reached into his pocket, hand closing around two grenades. They weren’t enough to break through the armor of a Khopesh and do damage to it after, but they should do the trick. He just had to hope hard enough.

In his head, he counted as the hacked bots drew close. He had one shot. If it didn’t work, he’d have to get down as fast as he could. Even if it did, he had to. He was too exposed, too far from any defensible position, maybe not even in a position where he could fight back if he wanted to.

As the first bot passed below him, Erik threw the grenade at the opposite wall. Then, he dropped the second.

It was a mistake. A miscalculation. He was stupid to think it would work smoothly. Erik beat himself up mentally as he tried his best to keep his balance for a moment as the whole cliff moved, under him, around him. All hell had broken loose, telling by the red flashes and deafening noise of falling rocks, screeching metal as it was crushed, explosions. Not all rocks moved down. Some, much smaller, splintering ones, came back up again, propelled by exploding reactors.

Erik thought about his chances up high for half a second.

He didn’t wait to find out if there would be a ground under him a moment longer.

Hands braced against the rock, he pushed himself off and up with all his strength, gaining height despite—because of—his armor. At the peak of his jump, the jetpack came to life, allowing him to gain more height. No need to be stealthy now. He’d been loud enough in the announcement of his presence. He steered himself closer to the kettle, just to the edge of the cloud of debris he’d caused. Then, he killed the jetpack’s main thrust, using it only to correct his course, falling fast.

He rolled the landing off, just to jump again, bringing his fist down on the ground hard as he landed the second time, making it shake and knocking some more rocks loose. It bought him just enough time to get up and take his main rifle, already powering it up. Already aiming when the Khopesh nearest to him turned. There was the hiss of compressed air as he shot.

The grenade from his OICW hit the Khopesh in its middle section, just between the legs and the shoulders with all its weapon systems. For a second, nothing happened.

Erik didn’t care. He was already moving. Already making sure his next shot was ready when he needed it.

The grenade exploded. Erik didn’t care. He was already running up to the next, aiming, dodging a rocket and then reaiming, pressing the trigger only when he was sure he’d hit.

He could hear the whir of lasers warming up. The pounding of his heart in his ears. The collapsing second Khopesh bought him a second, enough time to avoid the lasers, enough time to dodge another rocket, another, one more. He wasn’t thinking.

If he’d stop to think, he’d die.

The lasers helped, funnily enough. The third Khopesh he hit, he couldn’t even see through the smoke of battle filling the air. He could see the lasers just fine, though, knowing the bots well enough to aim guided by the lights. The lasers died a moment later, after another explosion.

Three more. Three more bots, three more grenades in his rifle. No time to reload if he made a mistake.

The Khopesh were wisening up to him. The rockets came closer and closer each time, one scraping his shoulder, another knocking a foot out under him, forcing him to jump awkwardly, almost making him fly into another laser. His shield was holding. His armor was holding. His AI was already warning him of the painkillers being pumped into his system. Of the hormones and chemicals in the mix. He knew, even though he had no attention for it to spare.

Another Khopesh down. Erik wasn’t even sure where it had come from, how they’d gotten so close to each other. The shock of the explosion pushed him back, making him stumble. His shield was crying warning signals into his ears. He was going deaf to them.

There were rocks rolling downhill around him. They were help and distraction in equal parts, cover to be used and dangers to be dodged in equal parts. The remaining Khopesh had pulled back, firing at him from opposite directions, making it hard to avoid their well-coordinated strikes.

Erik couldn’t find a pause, an opening, not the slightest moment to aim for too long. His shield was slowly going down. There was a horrible theme getting more and more prominent in the battle, him dodging, throwing himself down or jumping to the side, rolling, scrambling, anything to get out of the way of four heat seeking missiles. He found his bearings each time, each time a moment too slow to aim, too slow to pull the trigger, to ease the dangers, to take out the second to last Khopesh. He growled in frustration as he missed another opportunity. He was so close now the Khopesh used machine guns, in addition to the missiles. He couldn’t dodge those bullets, not effectively. He couldn’t do this long.

He rolled to his feet after another one two three four assault of missiles. He didn’t take the time to aim this time. He just fired from memory, hoping the Khopesh really was anchored, that it hadn’t moved since he’d last looked at it.

The grenade and the Khopesh with it exploded just when he dodged the next wave of attacks.

He took a sharp turn, zigzagging back around to the next, the final, Khopesh. Two missiles were much easier to handle. There was a grumble in the air, angry like thunder but louder still than the rock slide had been. Erik ignored it. One more grenade. The Horus wouldn’t be—

One of the Horus’ giant tentacles crashed into the ground right before Erik. He had barely enough time to react, to push himself off the ground in an attempt to jump it, activating the jetpack to get high enough to make it, pushing himself off the tentacle at the top, speeding his fall up, pushing himself forward further. Another warning—fuel low—added to the list at the edge of his vision.

He landed, noticed the Khopesh had gotten imbalanced from the impact of the tentacle despite being anchored, aimed and shot. Six grenades, six Khopesh down. No time to reload. Barely time to switch modes on his rifle, to return to energy blasts instead of physical ammo.

The tentacle swiped at him, fast for its size. Rocks sprayed away as it tore up the ground, pushing everything in its way forward, up, any direction where the tentacle wasn’t. Erik’s eyes widened. His legs reacted on their own, the part of him that didn’t care for feelings or even coherent thought long having taken over. He jumped on the bigger rocks, using them to gain height as he and the tentacle moved toward each other. It only needed a little help from the thrusters, in the end. He grabbed one of the scale like edges of the tentacle and held on, clutching the top side for his dear life. If the Horus could just rotate them freely, he’d no chance.

It didn’t seem like it could, however. It tried to shake him off, definitely, moving the tentacle fast, shaking him around. It only made him hold on all the more.

The break was welcome. It allowed his shield to recharge. It allowed him a moment to breathe, as terse as it might have been. He was ready for the second tentacle when it came, brushing down the one he was holding onto, set on wiping him off as the Horus trashed, rocks still flying everywhere. He braced himself, his whole body tense. Another jerk went through the tentacle under his body, but this time he pushed himself off instead of holding on, using the momentum of the jerk to get further, to get out of the way of the second tentacle.

He landed on his side, air knocked from his lungs, sharp pain flaring for a second before it was gone again, wrapped up neatly in the cloud of painkillers already keeping him from registering too much of what was wrong with his body. He scrambled to his feet, falling down again as he tried to run downhill, toward the body of the Horus. If he could only get close enough, there were dead angles to the tentacles. They couldn’t reach everywhere. He needed to get to one such place fast, as fast as he could. He couldn’t keep it up much longer, no matter how quickly shield and thrusters recharged.

Stumbling, running, rolling. Jumps, skips, lunges. He had no preference for his mode of movement now, if only it meant he got down faster, if only it meat he could avoid another try of another tentacle to ram him through the ground.

Everything was shaking.

⥁⥁⥁

Logan looked up from the sight of his rifle and sighed. It didn’t actually improve the view, it just shifted the scale. Without the sight, he could at least assess the size of the dust cloud Erik had caused, further worsening the already bad view. He wondered just how on Earth he was supposed to be of any help like this.

He had been able to see the explosions, however. Erik had to have taken most Khopesh out, even though Logan couldn’t be entirely sure. Not at this visibility.

And then, the Horus had started to move. Logan had cursed, loudly. Even at this distance, he could feel the ground tremor with each impact. It didn’t matter how immobile the Horus was, he was starting to realize. All that would matter was the one tentacle that hit.

He looked back through the sight. He needed to keep an eye on Erik. Even if it was a miserable task at the moment, he wouldn’t be able to look himself in the eye ever again if he missed the opportunity for a saving shot.

⥁⥁⥁

Erik stumbled to his feet, staggering a few paces before he could bring his free hand out against the solid body in front of him. He hoped he was right about the dead angle. He needed the break, needed to breathe, needed not to deplete the breathable air his armor supplied him with faster than it could be replenished. He turned, pressing himself as close to the Horus as possible. He just hoped it wouldn’t roll to its side and squash him that way.

The OICW was a comforting weight in his hand. He paused. Right, it wasn’t just him that needed a moment to recharge. The energy level was fine. Even his shield had started to be fine again. But it had no physical ammo, no grenades. And even though he didn’t think he’d need them much against the Horus itself, they would be of help in a pinch. Fingers shaking ever so slightly, he reloaded the grenade thrower.

Something hit the back of his head, barely registering on his shield. He ignored it. Something else flew past him, directly in his line of sight and hit the Horus behind him. Erik blinked. He looked up just in time to have another bullet fly past his helmet. He scowled in the direction the shots were coming from, but couldn’t see any bot.

His AI, however, suddenly started flashing warnings at him, marking a shape in the dust in bright red. If Erik hadn’t reacted, he was sure the AI would have started to point at it with arrows. Not that it needed to, now that he’d realized what he was looking at.

A seventh Khopesh.

Erik looked around. He felt exposed all of a sudden. The Khopesh walked closer, slowly, lasers gleaming and ready to fire. One of the Horus’ tentacles came around behind it, circling around, all but corralling Erik in with the Khopesh. The message was clear. He had nowhere to run this time.

Erik looked where he’d thought the shots had come for, just briefly. He could stand his ground, probably. At least this time. But if he didn’t need to… if he was reading the signs correctly…

He smiled.

It was so weird to finally have a sniper at his back again, after a couple of years without one.

He shook his head, gritting his teeth. For a moment, he raised his rifle, motioning as if he was taking precise aim at the Khopesh.

⥁⥁⥁

Logan shook his head at Erik’s gesture. Like he could confirm or deny that he was going along. Still, he concentrated, augmentations in his eyes prickling softly as they adjusted. If Erik made an opening happen, he was ready to take the shot.

⥁⥁⥁

Erik fired a grenade at the Khopesh as soon as he could. He didn’t expect it to hit, not when its defenses were all visibly readied. A quick blast of its laser made the grenade explode in full flight, far away from doing any damage. Erik switched back to his energy rifle, preferring lower damage with higher shot frequency. A full frontal attack would do him no good, not against a Khopesh, not when he was starting to feel tired despite the drugs in his system.

Defensive stances on both sides, Erik slowly moved to the side. The Khopesh followed his movement, keeping an equal distance, as they circled each other. Erik shot a missile down soon after the Khopesh had launched it, making fire and molten metal rain down between them. The second would have hit him, if not for a lunge to the side at the last moment, leaving it to crash into the tentacle behind him instead. It barely did any damage from what Erik could tell at the quick glance he allowed himself.

Only a couple of more degrees on the circle.

He took a few shots at the machine guns on the Khopesh’s shoulders, managing a lucky shot that disabled one. The other, however, was firing at him, relentlessly so, all the while the Khopesh kept launching missiles as well, making it hard for Erik to focus on the gun, as well as the occasional bursts from the lasers, hard to dodge and incredibly dangerous.

Suddenly, the Khopesh stopped. Dug its legs into the ground. Playtime, it seemed, was over. Erik braced himself, switching back to the grenades. If he was as lucky as everyone always claimed… his eyes focused on the glint of the readied laser, only a second longer than necessary.

The Khopesh didn’t fire its laser. Instead, once anchored, covers on its shoulders slid back, revealing two batteries of launch tubes. Erik gritted his teeth. Two missiles he could barely handle. About thirty to sixty was another matter entirely. He still raised his rifle to aim, praying for a miracle.

The laser exploded into sparks as the sniper shot hit it. Just a moment later, Erik hit the Khopesh with two grenades, the blasts ripping it apart. Looking at the smoldering wreck, he dared it to move while shaking out his shoulder. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt the recoil of a weapon like this.

His AI alerted him to the tentacle just in time to jump to the side, before the very tip drilled into the ground just where he’d been standing a moment earlier. Blindly, more worried about the tentacles than anything left around him, Erik moved toward the body of the Horus, to the part the AI was highlighting for him. There were a few access shafts into it, build into the prototype for workers to get to the computer cores. Lucky for him, the AI of the machines lacked the creativity to update its models on its own.

Somehow, he managed to apply an explosive paste around the cover of the access shaft before he had to dodge another drill attack. Little rocks pelted against his shield, drumming like a headache. He ripped the rest of the cover off its hinges once the drill had withdrawn and climbed inside.

The two spotlights at the sides of his helmet immediately flickered to life in the gloom. Unsure what he was expecting, Erik switched back to his shotgun, suited better for close quarter combat.

To his surprise, and secretly, his elation as well, getting to the cores he had to find was uneventful. Just empty, dark corridor after empty, clanging corridor. He couldn’t wait to get out, he thought as he installed the third bomb at the third core and set the timer. The cores he had found, according to his AI, were the one in charge of combat, disabling especially its Anti-Air Artillery, the one responsible for repairs as well as the one producing new machines. That only left the energy source, inconveniently located right in the center where it was the most difficult to access.

Erik really had enough of walking around inside the Horus.

⥁⥁⥁

Logan waited when Erik had disappeared into the Horus. The titanic robot was still thrashing around but with no target to hit, it eventually gave up, resuming whatever it had been doing to the mountain when they’d arrived. There were no smaller bots coming to its help, not that Logan could see. And he made a point of checking thoroughly, taking maybe a little more time than protocol and training dictated, just to make sure.

Eventually, he had to admit there was nothing much left for him to do from his vantage.

With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet, brushing the dirt off his uniform. He shouldered his rifle. Took a deep breath. Getting down, in his opinion, was even worse than climbing up sheer rock walls.  For a brief second, he wished he hadn’t gotten angry when Charles had half joked, half offered that they could just replace his last remaining arm as well, adding a couple of overall improvements, like generating magnetic fields from his hands that would allow him to fly, or at least fall much more slowly.

As it was, he had to climb down, shifting his weight around awkwardly each time he took a limb off the wall. He did his best not to look down. He did his best not to think about the loose and shifting rocks he was clinging to.

In hindsight, he should have.

He had his weight mostly on one arm as he was reaching for another foothold when the stone his other foot was resting on slipped. He held tight, his entire weight suddenly janking at his natural arm. Logan groaned. He was still too high up to let go. Desperately, he fumbled for a grip, hanging from both his hands for a moment until he managed to get his feet back under him as well.

For a moment, he just clung to the wall with gritted teeth, waiting for the pain in his shoulder to go away enough to get down to solid ground.

⥁⥁⥁

Erik exited the Horus through a different access shaft with about a minute left on the bomb timers. It meant he could allow himself the short break he took, getting used to the dim sunlight outside before walking out, ready to face yet another tentacle attack.

Nothing happened. The Horus just ignored him, the air filled with the whining of rock against its drills again. Erik let out a breath he hadn’t even noticed he was holding. For a moment, he was sure he understood why exactly Logan looked so battle weary all the time. The timer displayed on his helmet display flashed between red and white. Erik shook his head, wondering if this was his AI’s way of telling him to get a move on.

He jogged away from the Horus, ready to break into a full run should it decide to attack him again after all. Up on the entrance of the kettle, where he’d brought down the two rockslides, he could hear a strange sound, see dust rise from something approaching. He had his shotgun ready as he climbed the rocks, ignoring the faint sounds of explosions behind him, ignoring how it had gone silent around him a moment later, when the drills stopped just seconds after the last explosion died away. The strange sound had stopped as it had reached the rockslide, an indication that whatever it was was waiting for him.

Erik almost dropped his shotgun when he peered over the crest of the slide and saw Logan leaning against what must be some kind of vehicle, though it mostly looked like a green, open box on wheels with a metal construct on top. Actual wheels. Erik blinked. The letters DPV flashed at the corner of his vision, together with a brief summary from some kind of encyclopedia. He sighed. His AI was starting to act strange and he was not sure whether it wanted to mock or help him.

Erik pushed himself up and over the rockslide, not even bothering to climb down but instead using the last bits of fuel in the jetpack to get down. “Hi,” he said, unable to keep a grin from his face. His voice sounded strange, like the speaker in his helmet, or possibly the microphone had gotten damaged at some point. “Are you my pickup?”

Logan smirked at him, looking him up and down. He was holding onto his shoulder with his metal hand, Erik noticed. “Hey, bub,” his voice, too, sounded a little strange, distorted by the breathing mask he was wearing. “Something like that. Unless, you wanna drive this? It’s kinda awkward with just one hand and I’d like to take this back to the museum in one piece.” He thought about his words for a moment. “I only borrowed it, after all.”

Erik snorted, but nodded. “Sure, why not?” Somebody had thought it was important they learned how to drive and fly in the program and Erik had always enjoyed that part. He caught the keys Logan threw him easily.

“Thanks,” he said once they got the buggy moving.

“Aw, kid, I never liked driving myself much anyway,” Logan laughed.

Erik shook his head, eyes fixed ahead. “Still. Thanks.”

Logan patted his knee, something Erik heard more than felt. “Don’t mention it.”

⥁⥁⥁

Logan and Erik found themselves waiting in Charles’ office two days later. They had been debriefed separately, gotten the needed medical attention and then slept, all without seeing much of the man they both answered to. Now, they were showered and in fresh clothes, Erik sitting in the chair next to Logan with what Logan could only call good posture, wearing a t-shirt and long sweatpants, comfortable and yet hiding most of the bruises decorating his body. Logan had seen them all, since the doctor that had seen to his own arm hadn’t bothered shooing him out of the room they were fussing over Erik in. At least this time he’d gotten the kid back conscious. Logan himself was slumped in his seat and wore almost the same, having opted for a sweat jacket on top, however, which made it easier to hide the bandaging done to his shoulder. He’d dislocated it on that damned rock wall.

Erik’s fist bumping lightly against the side of his leg made Logan look at him. “I see sparks now when I dream of red lights,” Erik said, very softly, his eyes flickering to the door.

Logan was pretty sure Charles didn’t allow the bugging of his office, but answered at the same volume all the same: “That sounds very dirty, kiddo.”

Erik raised both eyebrows in innocent shock, but there was a tiny gleam far at the back of his eyes. “Does it now?”

Logan snorted out a laugh.

It was just his luck that this was the moment Charles chose to enter. A holopad hit the back of Logan’s head as he walked by. “I’m so glad you have time to laugh when the one time you manage to keep all your Augs intact, you break your bloody body,” Charles harrumphed.

Logan shrugged. “Not my fault when Erik’s the one telling sex jokes,” he grinned.

Charles sat down behind his desk, dropping the pad on his desk so he had his hands free to bury his face in them. “I do not want to know what or why, Logan,” he groaned.

“Your loss,” Logan smirked, winking at Erik. Erik rolled his eyes back at him but seemed thankful enough about the half-truth.

Charles looked up then, looking them both over before glancing down at his holopad and repeating the onceover. He let out a sigh, his expression soft for a moment. Then, he closed his eyes briefly and the moment was over. “Logan, the military history museum called about a busted tire on one of their Desert Patrol Vehicles. You don’t happen to know why?”

“Nope,” Logan lied cheerfully. “Definitely didn’t happen because somebody drove over some bot wrecks because they weren’t paying attention.”

“Next time, I’ll let you drive, one handed or not,” Erik grumbled. He hadn’t been distracted. Just tired. For a moment, he had forgotten that tires were a thing on the buggy he’d been driving. The tire had held until they’d gotten back to a waiting vert, but still… he wasn’t all that proud of it. “Why did they build those things with wheels, anyway?”

“Because way back when I was young, we didn’t have all those fancy self-driving verts,” Logan hummed. He’d noticed the corner of Charles’ mouth twitch, so he went on, “Anyway, if they find metal shards in the tire, they’d better quarantine it and send them to you because the bot that Erik didn’t run over was not a Scarab.”

Charles poked at his holopad. “Noted,” he said, tone just a little bit too dry for it to be genuine. “Any other confessions?” He raised an eyebrow. “Erik?”

Erik seemed surprised, then thoughtful, but he ended up shaking his head eventually. “No?”

“So,” Charles sighed. “Then it’s just me who’s getting the impression that your armor AI has started talking back and… and... “ His hands twitched in frustration, which Logan found somewhat amusing. “It’s sassing me. I’m damn sure it’s sassing me but I can’t point to it.”

Erik blinked. “Uh…” He cleared his throat. “The AI in my armor? Shouldn’t it have… I mean you said… it doesn’t have any personality. It just runs subroutines.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “Yes, it’s not supposed to have personality, Erik. That’s why I’m asking you. Did you notice it changing?”

Erik pressed his lips together. Very slowly, he nodded. “That means you’re going to delete it, right?” he murmured. He’d somewhat liked the way the AI had communicated during the fight with the Horus. But he knew the rules and he knew Charles. No AIs with more than basic intelligence, especially not the kind of AI that came with personality.

“Possibly.” Charles sighed. “It keeps displaying me an article about British longbow men. I think there’s a message there but I will choose to ignore that it reads _fuck you_ for now.” He shrugged. “From what I can tell the AI likes you, though.” A stern look was leveled at Erik.

“It just didn’t like it when I was focusing on things it didn’t think important,” Erik sighed.

“It probably just didn’t want to die, considering it was riding along in your body, Erik.” Logan was smirking. “I’m sure Charles can determine whether it’s safe or not. For you to have in your armor and for it to be anywhere.”

Erik pressed his lips together again. “Can you run a virus scan that’s better than my AIs own?”

“Yes?” Charles blinked. “But why?”

“I said one of the Scarabs tried to hack me.” Erik cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Or rather, my armor. I think after the system reboot the AI started to act… strange. Different. Might be that. Or it was just coincident. But… I don’t…” He shuddered. “I don’t want any Chariot class anything near me for a while, if that’s alright?” The last sentence sounded so much like a plea that Logan was tempted to get up and stand protectively between the boy and Charles to make that happen.

“Hm,” was Charles’ main comment on the whole outburst. He typed down a note. “Alright. Checking your armor AI for Scarab data fragments. Lovely. Good thing we have it quarantined in your armor for the time being.” He turned his holopad off with another sigh. “Good thing it can’t do anything dramatic with it, too.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? No rant about how no AI can be trusted with what evidence for catastrophes we have? You’re going soft, Charles.”

Charles smiled back at him. It wasn’t even the usual honey-drenched dagger of a smile, just a genuine, happy one. It even reached his eyes. Logan wondered briefly if the AI had managed to somehow take over Charles’ mind and alter his personality. “Not today,” Charles said softly, standing up again. He walked around the desk and came to a stand between them, one hand brushing briefly over the back of Logan’s neck. “Today, I’m just glad you made it back safe.” He sighed again. “Both of you.”

“Told ya I’d get him back,” Logan rumbled. He looked over at Erik just in time to see him reach for Charles’ shoulder and half-getting up instead of pulling him down, kissing him briefly. Logan swallowed, tense all of a sudden.

“I meant to do that when we came back,” Erik admitted as he settled back in his chair, looking pleased, in a nervous kind of way.

Charles was blinking at him, looking mostly dumbstruck.

Logan took enough pity to pat his hand, yet not enough to keep his mouth from making noises. He wolf-whistled.

Both Erik and Charles scowled at him, though Erik at least looked… amused? Elated? Logan found it hard to read him when he wasn’t being earnest. “What?” Logan asked. He’d really expected Charles to get angry. It was, after all, his usual way of protecting his mask from slipping. “I could leave you two alone now, you know.” He let his smirk grow knowing in a way Charles would surely understand.

Charles shook his head. “Leaving us alone? And here I thought you…” His eyes had narrowed for a moment, but they softened again. He shook his head. Took a deep breath. Turned back to Erik. “Do you really want that?”

Erik nodded, expression back to earnest and completely open again. “That. Yes.” He shot Logan a glance. “But if I get to ask for something…”

Charles sighed. “Anything. After the last couple of weeks, you earned it.”

“Tell me more about yourself.”

Logan started to laugh, turning it quickly into a coughing fit when Charles whirled around to glare icicles at him.


	7. Epilogue

Erik looked at the message that had woken him up and pulled a face. He could barely stay awake long enough to type a reply. He’d just gotten back from a more than month long deployment and all he wanted was sleep. Sleep and maybe not dream of corporate war bots and civilians engaging in guerilla warfare and more corporate bots, both police and war bots. He fell back against his cushion. At least he was sleeping in his own bed tonight, so having Logan over to talk for an hour or two wouldn’t be a problem.

He’d dozed off again by the time Logan got there. He had to, because that was the only explanation why Logan was shaking him away lightly. Erik rubbed a hand across his face. “‘m awake,” he rumbled, swatting at Logan. Glancing at the clock on his holopad, he added, “Took you long enough.”

Logan shrugged, sitting down on the desk chair he’d pulled up to the bed. “Thought you’d appreciate the extra sleep. How was Oceania?”

“Loud,” Erik groaned. “Flashy. I’m starting to get why you hate corporate politics so much.”

Logan laughed. “Hey, I warned you it’d be likely they sent you there. About a week before they actually did.”

“Hm, must have been important to not only end the fighting but claim the spoils then,” Erik agreed. He had still mostly no idea why he was sent anywhere but started to feel like he could make educated guesses.

“Oh, you know, a bunch of rare earths, some fossil fuels.” Logan waved his hand. “Same deal as always, really.”

“How’s the nightmares?” Erik said. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that Logan only came calling late at night if he couldn’t sleep. Erik did the same, after all.

Logan shrugged. “Same as always. Annoying enough to keep me up for the rest of the day.”

Erik leaned back with a sigh. That sounded like the end of the topic and he would respect it. “Did Charles call you to his office tomorrow, too?” he asked instead, already knowing the answer.

Logan snorted. “Yeah, he sent us both the same mail. Congrats, by the way.” A bright grin appeared on his face. His chest fluffed a bit with second hand pride, too. “Master Chief Petty Officer sounds fancy as hell.”

Erik shrugged, even though he couldn’t help grinning. “Navy said I needed a fancy one to order their boys around so I got that for saving their a…” He tried. He really did. In the end, he had to change the sentence to “Saving their hides” and still felt a bit embarrassed. “Twice,” he added, because it was the truth.

Logan punched him in the arm. “Whatever you say. You definitely deserve it.”

“You think so?” It was still, after two years of interacting people outside the base, the easiest to open up to Logan. He had started to be a little more honest with Charles, was trying to get them on equal footing, but there were just some things he couldn’t tell anyone else. “I still feel like a fraud, like stuck in the wrong role, whenever I need to order soldiers around outside of combat.” In combat was no problem, never had been, never would. Outside, he still felt like a silly kid, who didn’t know the stock from the muzzle.

“But you do it, don’t you?’ Logan asked, still grinning. Erik could get used to the pride in his eyes when Logan was looking at him. “And, I mean, you did enough to deserve it. I know your combat record. For that alone you deserve it. And for the people skills, you just gotta learn.”

“Everything that’s not luck can be learnt,” Erik quoted Logan’s frequent expression back at him. He stretched, eying Logan for a moment. It was an hour before he’d usually get up, but… “Gym?”

“Reading my mind, bub.”

⥁⥁⥁

The meeting Charles had called them to wasn’t in his office. It wasn’t just with the two of them, either, but about ten other people, too, all seated in a small conference room. Charles did the presentation himself, explaining how his project had been allowed to go into a second phase. Logan had gone stiff at the announcement, then relaxed when he’d heard that they wouldn’t take applicants under the age of sixteen. Not this time, at least. After that brief and rather vague explanation of the project, ending with pointing out Erik who looked mostly smart in his new officer uniform, Charles moved on to explaining why he’d invited them. It was a recruitment presentation, Logan slowly realized, even though he had no idea why he’d been asked to attend.

Charles waited until he’d pointed out the strengths and his hopes for them working under him on the project of everyone else before he got to Logan, conveniently forgetting Erik in that round. “And finally, Logan, old friend, I cannot think of a better man to teach those recruits how to deal with low tech weaponry and vehicles,” he said, his smile almost angelic in its innocence.

Logan considered jumping across the table and strangle him. He, in charge of teaching a bunch of green kids not to shoot themselves in their feet, what was Charles thinking? He crossed his arms in front of his chest, that move a much wiser one than any attempts of murder. Erik would stop him anyway before he could get anywhere.

“I’m sure you and Erik would make a good team in training the more hands on units, too,” Charles added, actually fluttering his eyelashes, the manipulative bastard.

Logan harrumphed.

“You’re getting too old for field deployments, anyway, you said so yourself. And now I’m offering a stable, boring post looking after a bunch of volunteering kids.” Charles knew he’d won and Logan hated him for that, at least a little.

He nodded anyway. “Fine. Whatever.” He glanced at Erik as Charles moved on, going into details of the project as prompted by questions. “You’re only gonna be of help when you’re not out in the field, are you?” he muttered.

Erik patted his shoulder, grinning. “I’m not too old for field deployments, yet.”


End file.
